Covid restrictions haven’t dampened the opportunities for young people in agriculture, with favourable seasonal conditions and elevated commodity prices underpinning new job openings in rural communities.
Over the past 12 months, specialist agribusiness lender Rabobank has added five graduates to its Dubbo business and area manager Luke Smith said the combination of Covid restrictions and industry confidence had encouraged more young people to take a second look at careers in regional areas.
“The current cycle is as good as we’ve seen in farming for many seasons and with good rainfall in the eastern states, generally strong commodity prices across the board, and low interest rates, farmer confidence is up and that’s having a flow-on effect on job opportunities across the industry,” Mr Smith said.
“What we saw locally over the past year is that many young people moved out of the big cities because of Covid and returned to rural and regional areas to find a thriving agricultural sector that is moving with the times.”
Mr Smith said Rabobank had added to its capacity to meet the growing financial needs of farmers for new equipment, property and working capital.
“We recently hired five new graduates from universities in Armidale, Geelong and Wollongong, who have boosted our ability to better serve farmers and producers across the central-west,” he said. “All of them are new to Dubbo and three of the five have family ties to farming.”
One of those employees, Thomas Hickman, whose family run “Talinga” near Cowra, said the ability to work for a global agribusiness bank had spurred his move to Dubbo.
“There’s a good community in Dubbo, which is attracting more younger people, who are returning from the cities to be closer to the land,” he said.
“Covid has changed how people work with many companies now offering flexible working arrangements and technology that enables people to work from anywhere, which has created more opportunities for new businesses to startup in regional towns like Dubbo.”
“It means that people can get good jobs with reputable companies while still being close to family and property.”
Mr Smith said new technologies were also changing the face of the agricultural supply chain and opening doors for younger people.
“Entrepreneurs with innovative technologies are flooding into the agribusiness sector, which makes it a really attractive field for university students,” he said.
“There’s new technologies such as satellite tracking that is improving farm operations, smart spray rigs that help to reduce chemical usage and smart ear tags that can track the development of livestock.”
“All of this helps to improve the efficiency of the supply chain, which helps farmers get more food to more consumers in a faster timeframe and at a lower cost.”
Rabobank Australia & New Zealand Group is a part of the global Rabobank Group, the world’s leading specialist in food and agribusiness banking. Rabobank has 120 years’ experience providing customised banking and finance solutions to businesses involved in all aspects of food and agribusiness. Rabobank is structured as a cooperative and operates in 38 countries, servicing the needs of approximately 8.4 million clients worldwide through a network of more than 1000 offices and branches. Rabobank Australia & New Zealand Group is one of Australasia’s leading agricultural lenders and a significant provider of business and corporate banking and financial services to the region’s food and agribusiness sector. The bank has 93 branches throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Denise Shaw
Head of Media Relations
Rabobank Australia & New Zealand
Phone: 02 8115 2744 or 0439 603 525
Email: denise.shaw@rabobank.com
Skye Ward
Media Relations Manager
Rabobank Australia & New Zealand
Phone: 0418 216 103
Email: skye.ward@rabobank.com