TECHNOLOGY has been inspiring more students to consider a university pathway as they start thinking about a career in agriculture.
About 75 students from the WA colleges of agriculture in Denmark, Harvey, Cunderdin, Morawa and Narrogin, along with Edmund Rice College, toured The University of WA, Curtin University and Murdoch University last week to gain insight into the courses and opportunities on offer.
The event, in its fifth year, was co-ordinated by Department of Education, Teaching and Learning Services principal consultant for agricultural education, Alysia Kepert.
“Feedback from previous students shows that coming onto campus is a really important part of their further education exploration,” Ms Kepert said.
“We also invite back previous students now studying at each of the universities so students can identify with someone who has had a similar secondary education experience.
“While the agricultural colleges are an important part of WA agricultural education, the Department of Education is developing strategies to expand the uptake of the senior secondary agriculture courses in other Western Australian schools to bring the clear career opportunities in the agricultural industry to a wider audience.”
The day started at UWA with professor Graeme Martin discussing the demand for agricultural scientists, not just at UWA but across the industry.
“We are in an industry where there are much more jobs than there are graduates so there are so many opportunities,” professor Martin said.
He also spoke about the role of the 1600 hectare UWA Future Farm at Pingelly and it’s aim to create a profitable sustainable farm for the long-term future.
“We love what we do here at UWA – we love teaching it and we love researching it,” he said.
UWA agronomist Ken Flower shared with students how drone technology will (and already is) revolutionising agriculture.
Dr Flower said the technological advancements in agriculture had created a lot more interest in people wanting to study the field at university, so much so that a new masters degree in agriculture engineering was being developed.
Aimed to have a strong focus on precision ag and drone technology, the course is set to be available in 2020-21.
“In precision ag we are using drones for remote sensing to tell how healthy a crop is,” Dr Flower said.
“We can measure the temperature of the crop to tell which crops are under water stress and the impact of frost damage.
“We can also specifically target weeds to reduce costs and minimise the use of chemicals.
“From the data, we can then form a prescription map which can be loaded into the tractor to apply different levels of nutrients to certain areas.”
Dr Flower said the main reason this technology wasn’t being used yet was people in WA not knowing how to utilise the data and creating management strategies, which is where incoming students would help.
“In five to 10 years time, a lot of this technology will be used,” he said.
For the second part of the day, the students headed to Curtin University where they toured some of the lab facilities with King Yin Lui.
The group then moved onto Murdoch University, visiting the Anatomy Museum and the campus farm.
WA College of Agriculture, Denmark, deputy principal Steve Swallow said university education was becoming more common among students at the school, with about one third of students undertaking the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) program.
“Today we are trying to show students the options in tertiary education at universities which all offer agriculture-related degrees,” Mr Swallow said.
“Technology seems to have made students more interested in going to university to study an ag-related degree, as I think they realise they need to go university to understand the technology and be able to utilise it correctly.”
College of Agriculture, Harvey animal and plant production and biology teacher Colin Newton said the day offered students the chance to meet up with peers from other ag colleges.
“The ag colleges are very spread out from one another so this is one of the good opportunities that the students have to network with one another,” Mr Newton said.
“They can also hear about trends in agriculture, find out about the courses that are on offer and see things that they wouldn’t usually get to see in their normal studies.”
Year 11 Harvey college student Kristen Batten said she was still uncertain about her career direction, which meant it was important to see what opportunities were available.
“I don’t know what I want to do after school, so days like this open up some doors as to what is out there to help me decide on what I might want to do,” Kristen said.
“A career in ag is definitely an option for me, but I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do.”
Year 11 Narrogin college student Ryan Brechin said the tours were eye-opening.
“(The day) has given me some ideas of what I can do when I go to university,” Ryan said.
“I was thinking of doing computer programming, but I’m still not sure on what I want to do.”
