A new survey has found 77 per cent of city teenagers know little or nothing about farming and food production, but most see farming as important to Australia.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
They’re among the key findings of research commissioned by agricultural banking specialist Rabobank and conducted by House of Brand.
The Rabobank Farm Experience Urban Youth Research surveyed 600 students aged 15 to 18 from Australia’s major capital cities attending government and non-government schools.
It found 17 per cent of the teenagers surveyed had never been on a farm, and overall, two-thirds visited a farm less than three times in their life.
While 68 per cent don’t know, or know only a little, about how food gets from farm to plate, more than 90 per cent perceive farming and food production as very important to Australia.
However, when it came to career prospects, agriculture rated lower than many other professions among the students surveyed.
Medicine and business were rated highest - by 24 per cent and 19 per cent respectively - in terms of career choice, while only 7 per cent of respondents expressed interest in a career in agriculture.
Marc Oostdijk, Rabobank Australia and New Zealand head of sustainable business development, said Rabobank conducted the research as the bank, and its farming clients, had a genuine concern the next generation of Australians may not understand or appreciate the role of agriculture in the nation’s economy and future.
In a statement, he said the research showed a “concerning knowledge gap” among Australian youth when it comes to agriculture and food production.
“The very limited exposure many young people in Australian cities have to farming and where their food and agricultural produce comes from was clearly identified in this research, with the survey showing two-thirds of city teenagers have had very limited direct farm access, and some none at all,” he said.
He said almost 20 per cent of teenagers in the survey said they “don’t really know anything” about “how food gets from the farm to my plate”, while 49 per cent knew only “a little”.
Mr Oostdijk said while there was generally low awareness of the food production process among the teenagers, it was more acute once produce and ingredients had left the farm.
Mr Oostdijk says there was little difference in the overall knowledge levels among government and non-government students but knowledge and understanding of farming and food production was considerably higher among the students who had spent more time on farms, he said.
