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Department of Agriculture

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  1. Home
  2. Agriculture and land
  3. Farming, food and drought
  4. Agricultural Workforce

Sidebar first - Farming

  • Farming, food and drought
    • Mouse infestation advice
    • Delivering Ag2030
    • Climate change
      • Adaptation
      • Mitigation
        • Emissions Reduction Fund
          • Biochar Capacity Building Program
          • Emissions Reduction Fund Plantation Notification
      • A Coordinated National approach
    • Agricultural Workforce
      • Tripartite Working Group
      • National Agricultural Workforce Strategy
      • Workforce management and planning
    • Agriculture White Paper
    • Agricultural and veterinary chemicals
      • Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority-Review of Cost Recovery Arrangements
      • Importing and exporting chemicals
      • Domestic policy
        • History of COAG reforms
          • A single national framework for the regulation of agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines - funding model
          • A single national framework for the regulation of agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines - regulatory model
          • Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) to COAG
        • The Harmonised Agvet Chemical Control of Use Task group (HACCUT)
        • Harmonisation of off-label use in agricultural chemicals
        • Harmonisation of VPCR treatment of Livestock
      • Improved access to agricultural and veterinary chemicals
        • Assistance grants-Access to industry priority uses of Agvet Chemicals
      • International policy
        • Methyl Bromide and the Montreal Protocol
        • Rotterdam Convention
        • Stockholm Convention
        • Working Group on Pesticides
      • Reforming the regulation of agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines
        • Streamlining the regulation of agvet chemicals
          • APVMA Board and Other Improvements Bill 2019
          • Recent Agvet Chemicals Regulations Amendments and Ministerial Orders
          • Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2018
          • Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Operational Efficiency) Bill 2017
          • Previous consultation
        • First Principles Review
        • Previous reviews related to agricultural and veterinary chemicals regulation
      • Chemical Regulation
      • Cost benefit and risk analysis of the potential relocation of the APVMA
    • Animal
    • Biotechnology
      • Biotechnology reports, articles, brochures and factsheets
      • International Statement on Low Level Presence
      • Joint Statement on Innovative Agricultural Production Technologies, particularly Plant Biotechnologies
      • Regulatory framework in Australia
      • Useful links
      • International Statement on Agricultural Applications of Precision Biotechnology
      • Biotechnology and agriculture in Australia: policy snapshot
    • Crops
      • About Australian crop industries
      • Cotton
      • Crops research and development corporations
      • Crops technical advice
      • International crops organisations
      • Key cropping industry organisations
      • Rice
      • Sugar
        • Reform of sugar research and development arrangements
      • Wheat
        • Inquiries wheat export arrangements
    • Drought and rural support
      • Agricultural Lending Data
      • Assistance measures
        • Drought Communities Program
        • Farm Household Allowance
          • Farm Household Allowance data dashboard
          • FHA factsheets and guidelines
          • Review of the Farm Household Allowance (FHA)
        • Farm Management Deposits
          • Farm Management Deposits Statistics
          • Historical Farm Management Deposits Statistics
          • Information for Authorised Deposit-taking Institutions (ADIs)
          • Information for primary producers
          • FMD Rainfall Analyser
          • FMD Rainfall Analyser FAQs
          • Reviews of the Farm Management Deposits Scheme
        • Farm Business Concessional Loans Scheme
        • Managing Farm Risk Program
          • Feasibility of agricultural insurance products in Australia for weather-related production risks
          • Information for providers of insurance advice and services to farmers
          • Questions and answers
        • Rural Financial Counselling Service
          • Small Business Support
          • History of the RFCS
        • Other grants and assistance
        • Pest and weed management programs
        • Regional Investment Corporation
        • Social support and wellbeing
        • Taxation measures
      • Approach to farm debt mediation (FDM)
      • Drought assistance contacts
      • Drought Policy
        • Drought consultations
        • History of drought policy
          • Government actions addressing the Coordinator-General for Drought’s advice
        • National Drought Agreement
      • Future Drought Fund
        • Case studies
        • Climate Services for Agriculture
        • Drought Resilience Leaders
        • Drought Resilience Research and Adoption program
          • Drought Resilience Research and Adoption Program webinar
            • Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs
              • Drought Resilience Innovation Grants
              • Science to Practice Forum
        • Drought Resilience Research and Adoption National Enabling Activities
        • Drought Resilience Self-Assessment Tool
        • Farm Business Resilience Program
        • Monitoring, evaluation and learning
        • Natural Resource Management Drought Resilience Program – Grants
        • Natural Resource Management Drought Resilience Program — Landscapes
        • Networks to Build Drought Resilience
        • Regional Drought Resilience Planning
    • Farm Safety
    • Food
      • Codex - International Food Standards
      • Food chain resilience
        • Critical Infrastructure Resilience Strategy
      • Food links
      • Food publications
      • Food regulation and safety
        • Current issues
          • Food adulteration
        • Food export review
      • Improving Market Transparency in Perishable Agricultural Goods Industries
      • International Food Standards Initiative
      • National Residue Survey
        • Residue and residue testing
        • Results and publications
        • Animal product residue monitoring
        • Contact us
        • Definitions, abbreviations and acronyms
        • Databases
        • Plant product residue monitoring
        • Residue chemistry and laboratory performance and evaluation
      • Organic and biodynamic produce
        • Organic Industry Advisory Group
    • Horticulture
      • Horticulture Code of Conduct
      • Horticulture links
      • Honey bees
    • Industry engagement
    • Infrastructure
      • Agricultural Shows and Field Days
        • Agricultural Show Development Grants Program
        • Supporting Agricultural Showmen and Women
        • Supporting Agricultural Shows and Field Days
      • TraNSIT
    • Leadership in Agricultural Industries Fund
    • Levies and charges
      • Lodging returns and paying levies
        • Late payment penalties
        • Levies Online
          • Frequently Asked Questions
          • Levies Online Feedback Survey
        • Manual return forms
      • Leviable commodities
      • Levy and charge rates
      • Levy Payer Registers
        • Frequently Asked Questions
        • Levy Payer Portal
        • Guide for research and development corporations and information recipients
        • Levy Recipient Portal
        • Notices
      • Streamlining and modernising levies legislation
      • Levies notices
      • Biosecurity Levies
      • Levy publications
      • Related legislation
      • Contact Levies
    • Meat, wool and dairy
      • Dairy
      • Dairy Industry Code
      • Export quotas
      • Intensive livestock and game
      • Red meat
        • Review of AUS-MEAT’s capability to oversee the rollout of DEXA technology
        • Dept of Food and Agriculture, WA - NW WA Beef abattoir report
        • Exporting meat and meat products
        • Export quotas
        • Levies
        • Red meat export statistics
        • Red meat livestock industry structure
      • Wool
    • Natural resources
      • Ecosystem services
        • Ecosystem Services Report
        • Relationships between land management practices and soil condition
      • Landcare
        • Landcare publications
        • Australian Framework for Landcare
        • National Landcare Program
          • Australian Government investment in Landcare
          • Landcare Awards
          • Landcare Facilitators
          • National Landcare Conference
        • National Landcare Advisory Committee
        • Landcare tax benefits
        • Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package
      • Natural Resource Publications
      • Australian Government Reef Programme
      • Salinity
        • Salinity Mapping
          • What is airborne electromagnetics?
      • National Soil Strategy
        • National Soils Advocate
          • National Soils Advocate Forum 2022
          • National Soils Advocate Forum 2021
          • National Soils Advocate - Terms of Reference
        • Monitoring the condition of the soil resource
          • Ground cover monitoring for Australia
        • Improving land management practices
        • National Soil RD&E Strategy
        • Reporting on trends in improved land management practices
      • Vegetation
        • Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
        • Rangelands
        • Weeds
    • Pests diseases and weeds
    • Plant
    • Research and innovation
      • Rural Research and Development Corporations
      • National Agricultural Innovation Agenda
      • Agricultural Chief Scientist
        • National Science Exchange Conference
      • Innovation Grants
      • Joint Statement on Agricultural Innovation Cooperation
      • National Primary Industries Research Development and Extension Framework
      • Rural Research and Development for Profit
        • Approved round one projects
        • Approved round two projects
        • Approved round three projects
        • Approved round four projects
        • Expert Assessment Panel
      • Science Strategic Action Plan
    • Wine
      • Wine Tourism and Cellar Door Grant
      • Support for wine industry impacted by red grape oversupply
    • Working holiday maker visa
      • Terms of reference
      • Submissions

Agricultural Workforce

The Australian agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors produce world-class food and fibre, contributes $86 billion to the national economy, and aims to achieve a $100 billion farm gate output by 2030.

The agricultural industry employs around 280,000 people and is a major source of jobs in rural and regional Australia.

One of the biggest challenges facing the agriculture industry is securing an appropriate workforce. This involves a whole-of-government approach to invest in the skills of Australians, create as many opportunities in the regions as possible, support secure pathways for overseas workers, and ensure workers are protected.

Find out how the Australian Government is supporting the agricultural industry to better skill, attract, protect, and retain its workforce.

The Australian Government is committed to building a bigger, better trained and more productive workforce, including for the agriculture sector. The Jobs and Skills Summit, held on 1-2 September 2022, resulted in multiple whole-of-economy measures that will benefit the agriculture sector in the immediate and longer term. These include:

  • Partnering with state and territory governments to accelerate the delivery of 465,000 fee free TAFE places, with 180,000 to be delivered next year. A total of 13,200 places will be dedicated to agriculture.
  • An increase in the permanent Migration Program ceiling to 195,000 in 2022-23, including 34,000 places specifically for regional visas within the skill stream.
  • $42.2 million for the Department of Home Affairs to recruit 500 staff to address the visa backlog.
  • A one-off income credit so that Age Pensioners who want to work can earn an additional $4000 over this financial year without it affecting their pension.
  • Increasing the duration of post study work rights of international students in areas of verified skills shortage to strengthen the pipeline of skilled labour in Australia
  • Reforms to the VET framework to improve flexibility through micro-credentials and better inclusion of work-based learning.
  • A review of migration settings such as labour market testing and skilled migration occupation lists. Information on the review can be found at the Department of Home Affairs website.

The Government also continues to implement the range of measures under the AgAttract and AgFair initiatives, which support the sector to enhance attraction, skilling and retention.

The Government’s AgATTRACT measures aim to shift perceptions of agriculture work and showcase the diverse career opportunities on offer through a range of programs.

AgCAREERSTART

The AgCAREERSTART pilot program is a structured employment program to help young Australians start a career in agriculture in their gap year. Read more about AgCAREERSTART or register your interest at agcareerstart.com.au

Download

AgCAREERSTART factsheet (PDF 193 KB)
AgCAREERSTART factsheet (DOCX 259 KB)

If you have difficulty accessing these files, visit web accessibility for assistance.

AgUP

The AgUP grants program provides grant funding to three successful applicants to support industry-led projects that create opportunities for attraction, retention, upskilling, training, mentoring and career progression for the agricultural workforce. All projects run from 2021-22 to 2024-25.

Community Perceptions and Worker Experiences Project

The research project undertaken by AgriFutures explores community views of working in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries, and the impact worker experiences have on attraction and retention. It will develop a modern understanding of agriculture and its workforce to demonstrate the broad range of experiences and opportunities on offer across the sector.

A forum was held in August 2022 with industry to discuss preliminary findings and a final report will be made available in 2023.

National Careers Institute Career Mapping Project

We provided $2.7 million funding to the National Careers Institute to build an interactive career map on the YourCareer website, showcasing the breath and diversity of occupations in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sector.

The career map will increase the awareness of traditional, non-traditional, new and emerging agricultural occupations, provide information on the transferability of occupations and skill sets to careers in agriculture and highlight the broad diversity of people that have forged interesting and successful careers as part of the agricultural workforce.

AgFair supports agricultural employers to adopt best practice modern workforce management and planning to attract and retain employees. This includes the procurement of practical resources to support employers to implement modern workforce management and planning practices.

Fair Farms

The Fair Farms initiative supports an industry-led training and certification scheme that aims to foster fair employment practices and reduce the risk of worker exploitation in the Australian horticultural industry. More information about Fair Farms can be found here.

Modern Workforce Management and Planning Practices

To support agricultural employers and businesses to build and improve workforce management and planning practices and skills, the project produced case studies and easy to use tools which provide practical support for employers, particularly small to medium-sized enterprises in the horticulture sector.

Watch the champion farmer videos and access the tools here.

The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme remains a key program for meeting agricultural workforce shortages and allows eligible Australian businesses to hire unskilled, low-skilled, and semi-skilled workers from nine Pacific islands and Timor-Leste when there are not enough local workers available. The government is working closely with the Pacific and the sector to strengthen and expand the scheme, with $67.5 million invested in the October 2022-23 Budget.

For more information visit the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade PALM website.

General enquiries

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Last updated: 27 January 2023

© Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.