School to work – Corinda State High School video

[Elysa Riedel – Department of Agriculture and Fisheries]

The Agribusiness Gateway to Industry Schools program is actually part of our next-gen ag program. It aims to excite students about the variety of jobs in agriculture, and the role that agriculture plays in food security and global markets.

Currently, there's 67 schools in the project across Queensland. We have a one-teacher school that has a bush garden, and they do things like soil management, soil monitoring, and they use all of that data in their classrooms for their STEM work.

Then we have a number of schools who are fully vertically integrated. They do everything on their school grounds, from grow the calf, to plant the seed, and then they eventually sell the product.

[Chris Butcher – Agricultural Teacher, Corinda SHS]

There's a whole new layer of farming that is now opening up with smart farming, digital technology. I think that the sensors and the smart farming network that we've set up has really helped the kids understand that there's a whole new level that didn't exist, really, 5 years ago, that's now opening up, which is the future.

[Emma Fisher – Student]

Before I did this course, I didn't really realise how much technology is actually used in agriculture. When I pictured agriculture, it was more just done by hands, like they did way back when.

Now, it's so different. You can see how much technology they use. They use all these different sensors, and drones and everything, to see when crops are growing or how well they are. It's really cool.

[Ava Grundon – Student]

It's exciting because even though agriculture is definitely fun, just learning about the animals and the plants, and how they work, but it's also really fun being able to make your own experiments and learn your own things through testing, using data, technology.

[Naomi Varnes – Student]

When we look at the data, if there's a weight drop, she'll look immediately into diseases that can cause that drop.

[Freya Crane - Student]

And she looks at foods.

[Naomi Varnes]

I look at nutrition because I really want to get the alpacas, our school alpacas, onto a diet that will help them to stay at a steady weight that's healthy for them.

[Elysa Riedel]

Ag tech is important to our department because it offers opportunities in efficiencies. So, it's important that we get the students really involved in ag tech, like Corinda has been, and we have many schools that are doing a similar work, because these roles are going to be the roles of the future, and we're going to augment our current roles into future roles.

[Chris Butcher]

I think the Agribusiness program and the funding that we've got from the Agribusiness grant, it's definitely opened up possibilities for some students, and made them see things that they would not have considered as a career, that they now realize that, "This is something that I can make my passion, that I really can pursue." That then leads kids to think, "Well, this is what I would like to do for a career. You know, this is a journey I would like to take." I hope.

[Elysa Riedel]

Many students who take part in the Agribusiness program go on to study or work in the agriculture industry. Many of these jobs haven't even been thought of yet.

[Aisling Taylor – Student]

Because there's so many fields in agriculture, I'd love to be part of one of those when I'm older and leave school.

[Emma Fisher]

Since we've come to the school, it's just, "My God. Wow! This is amazing. I really want to do this later on in life."