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TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS SEPTEMBER 9, 2025: ISSUE 834
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Ag subjects in demand PETER BURKE peterb@ruralnews.co.nz
THERE’S BEEN unprecedented demand from secondary school students across the country to study agricultural related subjects. The demand is so great there aren’t enough secondary school teachers sufficiently qualified to teach these
subjects, so Massey University, in conjunction with the Horticultural Agricultural Teachers Association (HATA), plans to run a series of courses next year to upskill existing and new teachers. Professor Paul Kenyon, the head of Massey’s school of agriculture and environment, says nationwide there are approximately 100 schools
teaching agribusiness and 200 are teaching agriculture and horticulture in some form. He says in the central North Island, schools are reporting that more students are taking agricultural subjects as opposed to some of the traditional science subjects. “This is staggering and shows that people can see potential careers in the primary industries and therefore doing
subjects at secondary school that will help them in career development and hopefully get them into a rewarding career,” he told Rural News. He says the courses Massey is planning will cover agribusiness, horticulture and agriculture and will be online and in modular form to enable teachers to do the courses in their own time. He says they will amount to about
Popuar winner ANDREW FENTON'S five decades of making an outstanding and meritorious contribution to the horticulture sector was recognised recently when he was presented with their top award - the prestigious Bledisloe Cup. The presentation to this popular figure in the industry was made at HortNZ's gala dinner in Wellington. Fenton started growing kiwifruit in Te Puke in the 1970s and right from the start became involved in a wide range of leadership roles across the sector. A special one was when he was elected the inaugural chair of HortNZ, which came into being in 2005, and he served in that role until 2013. He is still chair among other things of the NZ Fruitgrowers Charitable Trust. Fenton described being awarded the Bledisloe Cup as an honour and a great occasion. He had no idea when he came to the conference that he was to receive the honour. "I feel duped, because I was told that I was being invited to speak to the conference about 20 years of HortNZ. But now I realise why my wife Mary was so keen for us to attend this event," he says.
50 hours of learning and those doing these modules will be able to cross credit some papers to obtain a tertiary qualification. Some will also involve practical block courses run at both Massey’s Palmerston North campus. The idea of running the courses stemmed from discussions between Professor Kenyon and his staff, and a small group of teachers who already run courses at their schools in all of the above subjects. One of these teachers is Kerry Allen, secretary/ treasurer of HATA, a curriculum advisor on agriculture, a teacher at St Pauls College and also part owner of a dairy farm with husband James. She says the big problem in primary sector education is the lack of teachers who are qualified in that area and have wide understanding of the sector. “We often have vacancies and we fill them with teachers who have passion for gardening or have three cows in their back yard, but they are not qualified horticultural, agricultural, agribusiness teachers. So we are trying to get keen and passionate teachers who have a teaching qualification and maybe a number of degrees and upskill them in the content knowledge,” she says. Allen says there are no courses available to teach the teachers about the detail around things such as livestock management or soils or other core areas relating to horticulture, agriculture or agribusiness –information which is required as part of the curriculum for these subjects. ❱❱ To page 3
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