Cultivating a skilled horticulture workforce

There is value and interest in developing a skilled labour competency framework to help attract and retain horticulture workers in the Mildura and Swan Hill regions, a Mallee Regional Innovation Centre project has found.

The project explored the idea of a framework to foster skills development in a workforce that could shift between the main commodity groups of almonds, citrus, table grapes, wine grapes, dried grapes, and summer fruits across the year.

Leonie Burrows

MRIC Strategic Advisory Panel chair Leonie Burrows, who was part of the project reference group, said industry, education, and support organisations were consulted about their existing challenges and opportunities and how a shared framework could be established.

“It’s a really valuable initial piece of work because it shows there’s some core competencies required across the different sectors that we can develop,” Leonie said.

“These will be recognised transferable skills – things like work readiness, plant operations, health and safety and chemical usage, interpersonal skills, and more technical skills – that workers could take from one job to the next and use as a basis to build more skills.

“Many people see horticulture work as seasonal, but the sectors’ peak periods actually run into each other to make it a 12-month job.

“There are also amazing opportunities for career development, with skills gaps in everything up to agronomist. There is work suited to a whole range of people – from the unemployed to school leavers to backpackers to pacific workers to grey nomads.”

Leonie said the framework, which would include a central record of licences, qualifications and competencies, would have benefits for employers and employees.

“Employees would be able to add their information to what is essentially a skills passport and use it to apply for jobs more easily,” she said.

“This approach will also free up employers’ time because they’ll have better access to a pool of trained staff, which could help smooth the process of induction, reduce workplace risks and track training requirements.

“It’s also good for education providers because they can offer micro credentials as well as more traditional qualifications, depending on what is required to meet industry needs.

“There are winners everywhere – wins for employers, for employees and certainly for the economy. This feasibility work paves the way for further development of the concept.”

This project was supported by the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre, which is the Victoria Drought, Resilience, Adoption and Innovation Hub’s North West Irrigated Horticulture Node, with funding through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund and Regional Development Australia Loddon Mallee.

Read the final project report here.