Minister calls for earlier introduction, support for agriculture in schools

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Floyd Green says there needs to be a stronger framework around agriculture in schools.

Minister Green made the statement in his response to a question asked at the ministry’s New FACE of FOOD stakeholder engagement session held in Manchester on Thursday, January 11.

He outlined that, while there is a framework that exists already, more work needs to be done in reaching our young people.

“We have to do more in our primary schools around agriculture. What I have found is that we are waiting a little too long to introduce our young people to agriculture in a real way. I am talking moving past putting a seed on a wet towel and having it grow,” said Green.

The agriculture minister said the problem of youth participation is compounded by farmers not sharing their success stories and, instead, the consistent producing and sharing of sad stories out of agriculture.

“If everytime somebody interviews a farmer it is about what never work or about how things are hard, and we don’t talk about the money that we make to send our children to school, then people would believe that there is no money to be made in agriculture. And that is a part of the problem,” he highlighted.

He outlined that, despite the challenge, a lot of young people are moving towards agriculture, especially in the small-ruminants industry.

“A lot of them are going into small ruminants. I have seen that because a lot of them have seen a lot of people who have started from one and reach 10, 15, 20, and they have summarised that it couldn’t be so bad, if you start at one and now you have 20,” Green said.

He said the ministry will be strategic in responding to the challenge.

“A part of what we are going to be strategic about at the ministry is telling of the success stories so that our young people know that you don’t have to go to other routes to be comfortable. You can choose agriculture and be very comfortable,” said Green.