Agriculture

How will technology evolve the sector?

Australia’s agriculture sector already faces significant challenges thanks to slim profit margins, inefficient supply chains and unpredictable weather, while poor connectivity has meant that until recently the sector has been unable to take advantage of many of the benefits of digitalisation. But as network issues begin to be resolved, the sector finds itself lagging other industries in terms of its capability to wield digital technology to boost its economic performance.

The challenge now is to quickly build up capabilities within the agriculture sector to utilise digital technologies such as connected sensors and data analytics to provide greater insights into farm performance and translate these into productivity benefits. Significant opportunities exist to boost farm performance by automating production and logistics processes, but only if the skills exist that enable appropriate solutions to be developed.

How will the demand for agriculture workers evolve over the next decade?

Almost 3% of today’s Australian workforce is employed in the agriculture sector. Its task profiles are dominated by physical interactions and capturing and monitoring information, which means many of these workers will be highly vulnerable to automation over the next 10 years.

Our analysis predicts a particular reduction in demand for crop farm labourers and mobile farm plant operators, falling 13% and 25% respectively. These jobs are highly vulnerable due to their routine and codifiable nature.

In contrast, we predict the demand for gardeners to grow by 8%, as they benefit from productivity gains elsewhere. These workers spend relatively more time on less routine tasks such as making human connections and thinking creatively.

The future of jobs and skills needed

How widespread are skills shortfalls for new entrants to this sector?

As well as an overall reduction in headcount in agriculture, the rebalancing of demand for workers within the sector will lead to a significant reskilling challenge as new roles emerge.

Our analysis suggests that more than half of the most likely talent pool to fill these vacancies (both from within and outside the sector) lacks some necessary skills, especially regarding monitoring, speaking and critical thinking. These skills are a core element of the available roles, meaning widespread retraining will be vital.

For emerging jobs that require more technical skills such as programming, technology design and science skills, we see that the most likely prospective workers are significantly under skilled. While the numbers of workers required for these roles are relatively few, the task of finding suitable employees represents a significant challenge for the sector. In contrast, for the wider set of skill requirements we predict in the sector the reskilling gap is actually smaller than for most other sectors of the Australian economy.