CORRECTED VERSION RURAL AND REGIONAL COMMITTEE Inquiry into the capacity of the farming sector to attract and retain young farmers and respond to an ageing workforce Timboon — 18 October 2011 Members Mr D. Drum Mr I. Trezise Mr G. Howard Mr P. Weller Mr A. Katos Chair: Mr P. Weller Deputy Chair: Mr G. Howard Staff Executive Officer: Ms L. Topic Research Officer: Mr P. O’Brien Witness Mr I. Gibb, director, sustainable development, Shire of Corangamite. Necessary corrections to be notified to executive officer of committee 18 October 2011 Rural and Regional Committee 13 The CHAIR — Welcome, Ian, to this public hearing in the Rural and Regional Committee’s inquiry into the capacity of the farming sector to attract and retain young farmers and respond to an ageing workforce. I hereby advise that all evidence taken at the hearing is protected by parliamentary privilege as provided under relevant Australian law. I also advise that any comments made outside the hearing may not be afforded such privilege. For the benefit of Hansard, could you please state your name and address? Mr GIBB — My name is Ian William Gibb. My address is 75A Manifold Street, Camperdown, and I am the director of sustainable development with Corangamite shire. The CHAIR — With your presentation, would you like questions as we go or at the end? Mr GIBB — As we go is fine. The CHAIR — Good. Over to you. Mr GIBB — Good morning. Thank you for making time to receive this submission. Just briefly perhaps I will outline a little bit about Corangamite shire — just where you are. Corangamite shire is a north–south kind of shire, so in the south you have Port Campbell and Skipton up in the north. It has a population of around 17 000. I guess one of the important features to understand is that it has a dispersed settlement pattern, so there are kind of 12 key township settlements. In terms of agriculture, traditionally to the north of Camperdown there has probably been a focus on grazing and cropping and increasingly cropping has tended more to the south. To the south of Camperdown in this area, dairy is the predominant form of agriculture. In terms of the things that I have handed to you, the letter document is a submission that was made into the inquiry into agriculture and training, which I understand is not this committee, but I am just providing that to you by way of background because there are probably some issues that we touch on in that submission that are also relevant to this inquiry. The second thing was just a copy of my presentation, which I will work through today. Firstly, it is important to understand that agriculture is Corangamite’s dominant industry. The total output estimate is in excess of $2 million. Agriculture and manufacturing contribute to about 43.8 per cent of total output. The majority of Corangamite’s manufacturing is the result of dairy manufacturing and processing facilities. One of the challenges that this council perceives is the opportunity to increasingly value-add product locally, so while we might produce a lot of milk, and that is certainly the case, there is a clear opportunity to perhaps do more about value-adding that product locally. Corangamite shire is the largest milk producer within Australia’s most significant milk-producing region. The strength of the dairy sector underpins the Corangamite economy and supports other industries in the shire such as agricultural services, transport and logistics, and manufacturing. From the 2006 census it was evident that almost 2500 people, or 32 per cent of our workforce, were directly related to agriculture. Industry sectors in transport and manufacturing account for a further 900 jobs, or 12 per cent of the workforce, so it is a fairly significant component of the local economy. In addition to dairy we also have other agricultural businesses, and I have mentioned we are seeking to try to promote local value-adding through manufacture, boutique production and so forth. An example of that would be that Aussie Farmers Direct has recently relocated to Camperdown. It sources milk locally and processes milk that is distributed directly to customers in Sydney, Melbourne and Geelong and shortly will also be distributing milk to Brisbane. They have created 30 jobs and plan to increase their employment to about 100 over the next five years and there are a range of roles. That is a very good example of a processing facility that has recently established in the shire. We certainly want to see some more of that. In terms of key issues, I might just talk a little bit to the issues that we raised in our submission to the other committee. The first is in relation to population attraction and retention. In Corangamite there is very limited population growth. In fact in the northern towns and indeed communities generally there is a decline in population with the exception of Skipton, which is fairly close to Ballarat so it has had some slight growth. In the south there is limited population growth. It is fairly static. We have an ageing population, which is quite a common thing, but that does provide challenges in terms of future employment and the skills base. We think there is an opportunity to really try to work on some population-attraction strategies, and the council is certainly keen to do that. We are looking primarily at two things — trying to attract population from other regional and 18 October 2011 Rural and Regional Committee 14 metropolitan locations and also looking carefully at opportunities for migration in terms of both opportunities through skilled migration and also unskilled migration. So we are doing some work in that space at the moment. Mr TREZISE — What type of work are you talking about, Ian? Mr GIBB — Basically in the underskilled area there is a need for more labouring work. In the skilled area there is a need for additional skilled people in relation to manufacture, in relation to professional people and so forth. There is a very low unemployment rate and there are skills shortages. Mr TREZISE — So what initiatives is the shire taking to attract those people? Mr GIBB — We have done some work looking at a population-attraction strategy, which we are doing some work on now, and there are two components to that. One is around branding and generally a kind of marketing campaign, and the other is around looking at opportunities around migration. The CHAIR — Migration from anywhere? Mr GIBB — Both skilled migration and looking at the opportunity for unskilled migrant labour as well. There probably are opportunities there. Just going back to my submission, I think one of the key issues is around workforce planning in terms of the need to make sure that we have a skilled workforce and also an appropriate labour supply to promote agriculture into the future. As you know, farms are larger, there are now smaller workforces due to technological changes, and there is a need to look at opportunities in towns and communities for new forms of employment and so forth. The second point I want to talk about is education and training. I think it is clear that increasingly farmers require higher levels of education and training than they have in the past, and the cost of training and the cost of time away from farms are key issues. This is quite a difficult area in which to promote training. In the south-west I guess we are lucky that there are some very good training providers. There is South West TAFE, which has the Glenormiston campus, and also Deakin University. One of the things we have been trying to do is work with those organisations to encourage partnerships and to look at opportunities around training and education. Further issues around training relate to wages, so agricultural wages are generally lower than the incomes of people in the mining industry; for example, unskilled labourers in the mining industry. There is a need to look at income support and wage issues. The majority of farmers, about 70 per cent, now employ people other than the family on the farm. In our experience there is a need for provision of assistance in relation to industrial relations, occupational health and safety, wages and so forth, so some basic kind of training. As I said, we are trying to build local training product, and we have been having some discussions with South West TAFE, indeed with the DemoDAIRY project just outside Camperdown and Deakin University in that regard. One of the other things that we are interested in — — Mr TREZISE — Ian, just on that point, in relation to employing people, do government departments, for example, actively assist farmers such as in health and safety? Does WorkSafe — — Mr GIBB — Yes, yes. I am sure they do, but it is kind of about building knowledge around some of those things that farmers need to know in terms of improving farm management and systems on farms to cover off on those areas. Mr TREZISE — I would like to think departments such as WorkSafe, and I am only using this as an example in the employment area in health and safety, would be in the area proactively assisting farmers in recognising issues. Mr GIBB — And DPI as well. Yes, but my understanding is that there is a need for some more structured training around some of those things to cover off those things. One of the other things that we are interested in that I have raised in the other submission is that we have looked at a couple of models overseas.