Kate Waugh knew nothing about life on the land before she threw in her job as a project administrator in Melbourne and headed for a new life as a station hand, blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead at remote Gladys Downs in south-west Queensland.
With the horrors of COVID lockdown in the rear-view mirror, she found work through social media and invested in some boots and a hat before driving north.
"Even thinking back about those first three months makes me a bit sick. I don't know how I got through it," she said.
"I'd never really experienced such long hours and, working in the heat and working with livestock, learning to work cattle was really tricky."
The agriculture sector desperately needs more people like Ms Waugh, but says inadequate agricultural education is putting up roadblocks.
"It is such a big part of Australia's economy … so I think it's definitely something important to learn about," she said.
"I didn't even know that a station hand was a job. I didn't even realise that it was an option to me."
More investment needed
AgForce Queensland's Tanya Nagle said the rural lobby group was now footing the bill for programs to teach school students about food and fibre, after the withdrawal of external funding.
"It's really hard to understand why, when agriculture is such an important part of … Australia's economy and we're crying out for a workforce," she said.
"We need people to know where their food and fibre come from, so it is very frustrating."
She said the closure of several agricultural colleges in Queensland in recent years removed an important pathway for potential students.
"We need to have as many options available as we can, so that we can attract the best and brightest into the industry," she said.
Ms Nagle said misconceptions about animal welfare and sustainability were also a barrier for some young people.
"They look at the media, they look at TikTok, they look at Instagram. When you google a lot of things, the first thing about farming that comes up will be some of those activist sites," she said.
Industry taking matters into its own hands
Chief executive of meat processor Australian Country Choice, Anthony Lee, said watching his own city-based children experience rural Australia had inspired him to try to address the education gap.
"I see them getting off their devices, they're getting out, they're getting active, involved in the operations, riding motorbikes, riding horses. They love the machinery, they love the animals," he said.
"I see them at their best and then we come back into Brisbane, they go to school, and they don't learn about it.
"They get told sometimes very, very negative views [about agriculture] and so they brought it to my attention that that was not right."
He said others in the industry had similar concerns.
"They've had their children come home and say 'Dad, you're ruining the planet' or 'Mum, you're ruining the planet and I refuse to eat meat'. I heard a lot of that," he said.
Mr Lee said while agriculture was part of the national curriculum and some schools had very successful programs, the experience was not uniform.
I think the reality is that we've got a population who've got to eat," he said.
He has now organised a group of research and development corporations and peak bodies representing food and fibre industries, to work on a strategy to address the issue.
Enrolments on the rise
For those students who do discover agriculture, there is an abundance of jobs available.
Deputy Head of the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences at the University of Queensland, Victor Galea, said there were six jobs in Australia for every agriculture graduate.
Professor Galea said years of drought had given agriculture a bad reputation, but enrolments were steadily picking up.
"During the drought decade just about every story about agriculture was a doom and gloom story. It was about people having their properties foreclosed, it was people having to put down animals," he said.
"We've begun to move away from that narrative and people are beginning to see that agriculture is actually an important thing."
Extreme highs and lows
Back at Gladys Downs, Ms Waugh said her love of learning had kept her in the industry for the past year, despite a few challenges.
"I kind of realised how dangerous it can be working in the yards … my nickname was rails because I lived up there," she said.
"Every single time I had something very, very scary happen, I'd get to do something awesome.
"I'd be on the horse in the next hour or we'd be mustering with the chopper in the sky, which is the coolest thing I've ever seen."
Ms Waugh said she was unsure what her future held.
"I thought I had my career all mapped out a year ago and now I've done this job, which is the opposite of that. I've kind of realised maybe I can try something else," she said.
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