Being on the urban fringe, Hertfordshire County Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs (FYFC) is aware of how difficult recruitment can be for agricultural businesses.
A large percentage of YFC members in Hertfordshire are not from agricultural backgrounds either and the county was keen to promote the opportunities available in the industry to more young people.
Inspired by the success of Shropshire FYFC’s careers event, County Organiser Nicola Grovestock and County Chair Ellie Bullard set out to deliver something similar.
“We are a really small county – last year we had about 126 members – and we’re relatively urban as we have London to the south, which is expanding. There is a farming community around us but it’s not obvious to a lot of the children in the area what careers are available to them,” explained Ellie, who works in grounds maintenance in schools.
“We wanted to do something to open up this weird and wonderful world of agriculture and share it with more children in the area.”
The event attracted nearly 100 people through the doors of a secondary school in Harpenden that they managed to secure on a Saturday in September. There were 14 different agricultural businesses, including vets, universities, lawyers and the NFU, that came along to share information about the types of roles available.
“A lot of people who attended had come through the schools, rather than through our members, which was really nice. We had people come from across the county,” said Ellie.
“Sadlers made keyrings with everyone, which was great as you got to do hands on bits as well. Already businesses have asked if we will do it again next year as they’d love to be part of it again.”
The county is already making plans to grow the event and looking to involve more organisations next year. Especially as a bonus of the event was attracting new YFC members.
“People were asking more about YFC and we got to talk about our organisation to the children as well,’ said Ellie, who had set up a YFC display and took along scrapbooks to show people what activities members get involved in.
“Recruiting for YFC was a secondary motivation. The initial idea for the event was because farming and related businesses are going through such a tough time at the moment with staffing, we wanted to recruit for that and showcase it.
“In our club, only two or three live on a farm or are from a farm, the rest of us do other bits and it doesn’t matter. We’re all interested and all involved. Meeting members who are not actually farmers, made people realise they could join YFC and look at a career in ag as they enjoy being outside. It opened all these opportunities to them and I’m really pleased with how it went,” added Ellie.
The county has already attracted members from London to join clubs – one was travelling from Camden for weekly meetings because he wanted to work with livestock. He came along to the careers event and is hopeful he’ll find work in the sector.
“I don’t come from a farming background, but I have kind of fallen into it,” said Ellie. “It’s a really nice community to be part of and it’s nice to showcase that to new people.”
