History
The Farming Futures Dinner concept was founded in 2011 by students from the University of New England (UNE). These students are members of the Rural Science Undergraduate Society (RSUS) and Enactus UNE (formerly SIFE UNE).
Farming Futures is a celebration of careers in agriculture. Our vision for the Farming Futures Project was to create a networking event which would serve to:
- Provide an avenue for companies to promote employment opportunities within the agricultural sector
- To increase student awareness of job opportunities in the agricultural sector
- Create opportunities for industry to meet with upcoming graduates
- Provide encouragement and inspire students to complete their degrees
- Facilitate networking opportunities between students, academics and industry.
- Encourage all aspects of the sector to work together to tackle the shortage of agricultural graduates.
We believe that our Farming Futures concept is helping address some of the significant issues facing the agricultural sector such as: low numbers of agricultural graduates, uncertainty about career paths in the sector and the low percentage of the agricultural workforce with a tertiary education. Just 7% of the agricultural work force has a tertiary education compared to the Australian workforce average of 22% (Pratley, 2010).
Our first event the Farming Futures Industry Dinner was held in 2011. It was attended by 70 students and 30 industry representatives.
In 2012 we expanded the Farming Futures concept and incorporated an agricultural careers fair at UNE into our events. This was then followed by the Farming Futures Dinner that evening. Close to 300 people visited the careers fair and 250 people attended the dinner. The two events generated over 50,000 media impressions.
