We need farmers

Chrysalide Frecklington and Zaro Jalal

A project raising awareness on how our food gets from paddock to the plate.

Australian agriculture is set to become a $100 billion industry by 2030 and education will be critical to achieving that. Kinross Wolaroi School’s Director of TREE (The Regional Engagement Enterprise), Mrs Sue-Ann Gavin is on a mission to inspire the next generation of farmers and educate students about where their food comes from.

In September, she was presented with an $8000 grant from ABC Heywire to run the ‘We Need Farmers’ project at KWS and share resources with other primary schools in Orange.

Sue-Ann says the School is perfectly located in the Central West’s food bowl to pilot the project.

“Agriculture can be linked to almost 80 per cent of careers across the world and we are lucky to live in one of the most agriculturally diverse locations,” Sue-Ann said. “Some of KWS’ families are driving the future of innovation, technology and creativity in Agriculture and we all play a small part in educating the future generations to be equally amazing!”. The project will engage industry experts including local farmers, abattoirs, sustainable market growers, wineries and orchardists to work with Stage 5 (Years 9 and 10) Agriculture students to create teaching and learning material for Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2) students at KWS. The senior students will also work with a graphic designer to create a video that explains why We Need Farmers, while all students will visit farms to see how their food makes the journey from paddock to plate.

Students learn the best from doing and teaching others, Sue-Ann says.

“Many of our Stage 5 Agriculture students are from the land and passionate about farming – who better to inspire the next generation of farmers?” she said. “This project will show our Stage 5 students that we value their skills and passion, and encourage them to learn more. In turn, this will empower them to make career and life choices aligned with agriculture.”

The project will have benefits for the Junior School students that aren’t directly linked to Agriculture too, Sue-Ann says.

“I believe the project will also develop more big brother/sister relationships across the campuses. Moving up the hill to the Senior School can be a daunting experience, however, having a familiar face is one way to alleviate some of the fear,” Sue-Ann said. “The more positive role models we can provide for our younger students, the better.”

The idea for We Need Farmers grew out of the ABC Heywire Regional Youth Summit. Each year, 50 young people are chosen to attend the summit to develop ideas to make life even better in regional Australia. In 2020, they came up with the We Need Farmers project to identify how we can educate and take the younger generations behind the scenes of farming.

The Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal then partners with ABC Heywire to help communities such as KWS take action on the ideas generated by young Australians.

Sue-Ann says receiving the grant reinforces that KWS’ TREE program is relevant and innovative.

“For the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal to support and acknowledge our application through ABC Heywire, we know that what we are offering our students is unique and valued within the wider community,” she said.

“We are delivering on our goal to provide contextual, cross-curricular, community-based learning experiences for students from Pre-Kinder to Year 12.”

The grant also covers the costs of distributing the We Need Farmers resources with other local schools.

“Our goal is to engage all students in the understanding of why we need farmers,” Sue-Ann explained.

She also hopes that the project will one day grow to encompass all stages of KWS’ Junior School.

“We’ve already had a couple of unplanned learning opportunities across the stages when our Year 1 students were undertaking a bee project at Windermere (the School farm) at the same time as our Year 10 Agriculture students were rounding up the lambs in preparation for marking,” Sue-Ann said. “Our junior students were captivated by the activities and asking some really great questions, which the Year 10s were happy to answer.” •

Our goal is to engage all students in the understanding of why we need farmers.”

Mrs Sue-Ann Gavin, Director of TREE