VEG Education boss pushes for horticulture skills assessments to plug worker gaps

That's the summation from a chief executive officer with more than 20 years of vocational education and training (VET) experience.

CEO of VEG Education, Mark Pullin, says while the horticulture industry has tried to come up with clever ways to increase workers such as incentive packages and campaigns, there needs to be an improvement in critical thinking skills and how they are assessed.

"There is lots of training out there. If there is so much training going on, why do we have skill shortages? Why do we have a lack of skilled people in the industry?" Mr Pullin said.

Speaking at Hort Connections 2023 in Adelaide on the topic of "the final frontier of fresh produce", Mr Pullin pushed for a skills standard which can be assessed.

He said knowledge is familiarity gained through experience.

Competency is the key and should be proven, according to Mr Pullin.

"For me, knowledge must be applied. It has to be repeatable and therefore needs to include assessment," he said.

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Mr Pullin said upskilling workers needs to put them at a level where they can not only manage a task but also respond if something goes wrong.

"If you don't have assessment, you don't know what your employees are capable of," he said.

Mr Pullin gave the example of the national "white card" induction accreditation in the building industry

"You cannot set foot on a construction site without having one," he said.

He challenged the horticulture industry for a similar system but one that meets the worker's, farmer's and industry's needs.

"There is no point doing training where the context isn't understood," he said.

Common knowledge and skills such as manual handling, machinery and equipment operation, and hazardous substances and dangerous goods handling would be transferable across numerous workplaces.

People respond well to more training, according to Mr Pullin.

He said having people go through extra training gives them a meaningful pathway.

"Meaningingful is real, real is applied and applied must be assessed against a standard," he said.

"It is really important in the horticulture industry that our people are the best trained people for the future."

TRAINING is one aspect to the bigger picture of promoting the industry as a place to establish a career.

Mr Pullin said some industries have marketed themselves really well to attract young workers by selling the roles within them.

"We don't do that well in horticulture," he said.

Last year, VEG Education launched a new program for secondary schools called Food Futures, giving schools the opportunity to partner with the registered training organisation (RTO) to deliver VET certificates focusing on the entire food supply chain.

Part of the VEG Education program includes bringing students onto a farm to see exactly what happens and the opportunities.

It is also about educating children and teenagers on the basics of where food comes from.

Mr Pullin relayed a story about holding up a cauliflower to a class and asking what it was, only to have mixed responses including a cabbage or a lettuce.

"It is incredibly sad. I'm not sure what happened or how it has happened," he said.

The organisation plans to run a Veg Influencer program to inspire and motivate young people to embrace vegetables, something he suggested the entire industry should be doing.

"It's our job to get out there and say eat more veg, to get into it," he said.

"Because we are excited, they are excited about it."

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