AUSTRALIAN Association of Agricultural Consultants (AAAC) WA president Ashley Herbert labelled 2020 "the year of Zoom", but more than 160 members and associates met face to face for the annual Outlook conference recently.
While the COVID-19 pandemic caused "major disruption" to many other industries this year, agriculture and particularly broad-acre farming had escaped "relatively unaffected" Mr Herbert said as he opened the conference and welcomed AAAC members and guests.
Agriculture "remains a positive place to be" with good prices likely to help offset low crop yields, continuing good demand and prices for sheep and cattle and strong demand for leased farm land aided by low interest rates, he said.
But COVID-19 had highlighted a need for specialised training programs ahead of harvest to enable people to take on header and tractor driving or other machinery operation roles when needed, Mr Herbert said.