Agricultural Workforce

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator the Hon Murray Watt, established the Agricultural Workforce Working Group (the Working Group) at the Jobs and Skills Summit in September 2022.

The Working Group included representatives from employer groups, unions and the Australian Government. The Working Group focused on finding solutions that address workforce issues in the agriculture and processing sectors, including skilling, attracting, retaining and protecting workers.

In the final Working Group meeting on 15 September 2023, the Working Group agreed to continue tripartite engagement through an Agricultural Workforce Forum.

Further information on the Working Group, including a full list of members.

A communique is published after each meeting of the Working Group. Read the Working Group communiques.

Agriculture and its workers stand to benefit from a range of measures in the 2023-24 Budget. These include:

• An additional $3.7 billion upon striking a five-year National Skills Agreement with states and territories to ensure more access to vocational education and training, with TAFE at the centre of a high quality, responsive skills system.
  • This skills investment builds on over $400 million provided in the October 2022 Budget for a further 300,000 Fee Free TAFE and VET places in high-skill needs areas such as agriculture from 2024 to 2026 – subject to agreement with states and territories.
• Further expanding and improving the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, to support sustainable scheme growth and improve support for workers.
  • For more information visit the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade PALM website.
• Committing $75.8 million over two years from 2023–24 to extend the current surge in visa processing resources to ensure timeliness of visa processing and improve existing visa processing systems.
• Improving pathways to permanency for Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) (subclass 482) visa holders.
• Supporting strong regional communities with access to essential services, with a range of initiatives across early childcare, schooling, healthcare and housing.

Fee-Free TAFE will provide opportunities for Australians to access skills and training across priority industries. Over 500 students have enrolled in an agriculture-related Fee-Free TAFE course during the first half of 2023. Places are now available for enrolment for students looking to commence a career in the industry or existing workers wanting to upskill.

Find out more about these opportunities by accessing our Fee-Free TAFE for agriculture factsheets.

An inclusive and diverse workforce is important to the growth of Australia’s agricultural sector.

Employers and employees can find out more about what Commonwealth support is available by accessing our Workforce diversity and inclusion in agriculture factsheet.

The factsheet specifically outlines what Commonwealth support is available for:

• People with disability
• Women
• First Nations Australians.

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.

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

The government is continuing its review of the migration system. Information on the review can be found at the Department of Home Affairs website.

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

Community Perceptions and Worker Experiences Project

The Community Perceptions and Worker Experiences Research Project was commissioned as a one-year project to better understand and respond to community perceptions and worker experiences within the agriculture, fisheries, and forestry sector.

The final report and several case studies promoting positive aspects of working in the sector are available on the AgriFutures website.  The research will support industry to improve their workforce attraction and retention strategies. 

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.

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.

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 Educating Kids About Agriculture initiative supports two programs bringing our kids and our farms together.

• The Kids to Farms program sponsors government, Catholic and independent primary school visits to farms and other primary production worksites. Students learn about agriculture production, sustainability practices and land stewardship.
• The Farms to Kids (iFarms) program delivers integrated farming platforms or ‘mini farms’ to city and inner city schools nationally to increase students understanding of where and how their food and fibre are produced.

The National Agriculture Labour Advisory Committee’s report – National Agricultural Workforce Strategy: Learning to excel was released in March 2021.

See the National Agriculture Workforce Strategy below.