General News
6 October, 2025
Putting the skids on the drift of the kids
HOSTED at Longerenong College for eight years, but actually running since 2010, is the Rotary-Club-sponsored ‘Defying The Drift’ program, aiming to encourage Year 10 and 11 students to pursue a career in agriculture, land and livestock management or another agriculture-related industry.
The three-day 2025 event was fully booked well in advance and gave the 30 attendees a great combination of information and mentoring relating to a wide range of farming work.
The program comes from the recognition of an urgent need, with the average age of farmers in Australia and New Zealand being 55 to 59, and the world’s ever-increasing population, giving young people an accurate and inspiring picture that a primary producer career is becoming increasingly important.
DTD chair, Dale McIntyre, was at Beaufort Rotary Club at the time and said the economic conditions and the generational farming trajectory 15 years ago alarmed him, and he wanted to act.
“All the young people were leaving and going to Melbourne,” he said.
“We were losing a lot of people who, in normal times, would remain on farms, and that's how it started.
“With a bit of drought relief money, with some help from Monash and Surrey Hills Rotary Clubs in Melbourne, (we) did a fundraiser down there and helped start the programme.”
In the early years, DTD was hosted at Marcus Oldham College in Geelong, but a restructure there and Dale’s own move to a new farming location at Laharum led him to approach Longerenong.
He said the administration was extremely receptive to the program and continued to be “fantastic” and “absolutely phenomenal” in hosting the students, some of whom have come from interstate, some from cities, and one year they even had one “off a farm in Germany”.
“She came and did the programme and benefited greatly from it,” Mr McIntyre said.
The first day – Monday, September 22 – began with an introduction and tour of the college, with classroom lectures following, all with mentors from previous years alongside.
“We have the students come in, and we have two mentors … one student who did the programme the year before, and one student who did the programme two years before, and they're there to be a go between,” he said.
The evening featured a sumptuous dinner, readying the students for a full day of tours of farms and ag-related businesses – covering cropping, soils, machinery and engineering, business management, breeding programs and much more.
Dale said the whirlwind day started at 5.30am and was a key component of the program, giving the students a very broad range of experiences and industry touchpoints.
It wasn’t that everything was relevant to every student, but they would appreciate just how much range of work and skills exist within the farming industry.
However, he said there would usually be something that stood out to a student, and they would be inspired to make some key career decisions.
Mr McIntyre said he especially remembered one young man who wanted to go home shortly after arriving, but was convinced to stay, and through the program, went on three weeks later to give a 30-minute talk with another student to his local Rotary Club on how DTD had given him a sharp focus and radically changed what he wanted to do with his life.
He said the effect on the student had obviously been profound enough for his parents to notice; “to see his mother and father have tears running down their eyes because of what he'd achieved” – and he has seen similar levels of new confidence gained by other participating students.
With the proportion of farming operations generally now being on larger parcels of land, Dale said DTD was a reflection of how the industry needed to develop other ways of attracting young people.
“When I started farming, someone who around Horsham had seven or 800 acres, (that) was a viable farm,” he said.
“Now, most of those farms are 2000 to 4000 acres. So these young people can't inherit a farm because their parents haven't got 15 or $20 million to buy them a farm, but (DTD exists) to show them that there are opportunities in Ag.”
The second day ended with a guest speaker – “Louise Hobbs, who was rural ambassador for the Ag Society for Victoria” – and the last day included wind-up sessions and mock employment interviews, and Dale said he loved seeing the transformation in the students’ mindset and better understanding of a broad range of agricultural occupations in such a short time.
“If you were allowed to take video of the students on Monday night when they spoke, and on Tuesday when they speak, and then on Wednesday when they speak, you would be blown away at what it does for them, just the practice of speaking and knowing that they're not being judged – it is amazing,” he said.
Dale said DTD was again “pretty hectic for three days” and was already putting his mind to things that he felt could be improved.
“Every year I make some changes to it,” he said.
“You've got to make it really, really perfect, because you've got 30 young people under the age of 18 there, and you've just really got to be pedantic about it.”
But he was still heartened by the already-positive responses he’s received.
“I got nine letters of thank you from students, saying how they've enjoyed the programme, which they'd written out in their own time and just gave to me as they left,” he said.
“We're just trying to encourage people to stay in our rural community. It is financially a rewarding industry to be in. Yes, it has ups and downs, but it is a great way of life, and there are millions of opportunities, and that's basically what the programme is.”