A RECORD number of year nine high school students from the lower South West attended the Ag Inspirations program held in Manjimup last week.
Ag inspirations is part of the Shire of Manjimup’s Southern Forests SEED program, aimed at fostering relationships between students, education providers and the agriculture industry to highlight career opportunities that exist within the industry.
This year 74 high school students from Manjimup, Bridgetown, Nannup and Pemberton came together to participate in the action-packed three days of agricultural activities and excursions.
A number of local agricultural industires including Manjimup Truffles, Charcol Springs, Twin Lakes Holding, Stan’s Manjimup Farm Machinery and Advanced Packing and Marketing Services provided plenty of ideas for students to investigate as possible career paths.
Ag Inspirations facilitator and Shire of Manjimup Education Officer Stephanie Carstairs was impressed with the enthusiasm from the students whose numbers had more than tripled since the program began three years ago.
“We thought this amount of students might be a bit of a logistical nightmare, but it has worked out very well,” Ms Carstairs said.
“The Ag Inspirations program is a Royalties for Regions funded program that is part of our shires agriculture expansion plan.”
Ms Carstairs said she hoped this initiative would create more awareness to the agricultural industry that was not well recognised and was a great choice for young people to consider studying.
“The agricultural sector employs more than 600 people in Manjimup,” she said.
“More than half of the workforce employed in Agriculture is in management or supervisory positions. The average salary for university graduates in agribusiness is higher than the graduate salary for economics and law.
“Many agricultural jobs are a part of small farms however there are lots of other support positions not on farms such as science, agronomy, accounting and journalism.”
Manjimup Senior High School student Sean Borshoff said it had been a great experience and he had learnt heaps.
“This has been lots of fun and I thought I already knew lots of stuff about agriculture but it has been really cool because now I know so much more,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware of the huge choice that there is in agriculture, it is not just about farms but it is also about accounting, science and making big machines and stuff.”
