Wrong message and wrong messengers

That's the view of John Brackenridge, the head of Merino New Zealand and the leader of the chief executives' agri-bootcamp scheme that takes high-flyers to the United States.

He told Rural News that NZ is missing the point in this area and is stuck in a paradigm of traditional education and traditional approaches.

"For a start, I think the people who should be doing the messaging are the young people who are coming into the industry and who have found the excitement and are building their careers.
"They are possibly people who, when they were studying – at university or wherever – had no idea about the possibilities the agri sector had to offer. A lot of conventional thinking is that you have to determine where your career will be in a certain industry right from the start -- even at primary school. But I'm not sure about this."

Brackenridge says a lot of the people he's employed don't have agriculture-related degrees; they are from a variety of disciplines including as social science. One person he hired came from such a background and has now discovered the primary sector and is working 80-hour weeks because she loves the industry.

Many young people are being attracted to the agri sector because it links in with their values such as sustainability, he says.

"Sure we are employing a lot of graduates from the likes of Lincoln and Massey, but importantly we are also employing them from other places: one of our staff has a degree in anthropology. Through our connections with Stanford University we have students from there coming out and setting up programmes here.

"This is because they are finding out – from their points of view – that the primary sector here is quite sexy. When you come out of Stanford with a masters or a PhD the world is your oyster. What we have to offer in this country is hugely appealing because many young people are concerned about the environment, where products come from and what attributes and benefits they have."

Now is the time to be more disruptive in our thinking, Brackenridge says. NZ is too 'linear' in its approach to attracting young people into the agri sector. The sector needs to get success stories about young people better publicised and in front of the public at large.

He says the skills and qualifications NZers will need in the future will be quite different from those of today. To achieve the necessary innovation NZ needs people with disruptive thinking, fresh ideas and a wide range of skills – not just science.

"But really important is that businesses need to step up and change from just being commodity shippers, into businesses that embrace innovation," Brackenridge adds. "We need to come to terms with the type of language that young people use such as the importance of digital and connect with our young people."

And NZ needs to leverage off its overseas connections and attract young graduates from the likes of Stanford University.