It is in the “national interest” for Australian universities and academies to make agriculture a more attractive field of study for students, Mark Adams, dean of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Sydney, has urged.
In an article in Canberra Times on 16 February, Adams called for a “rethink” of agricultural academies’ role in research and education programmes.
“An artificial divide of ‘fundamental’ science belonging solely in science departments and ‘applied’’ science belonging in agriculture faculties and departments, is plainly dumb,” he wrote.
Adams suggested the establishment of a panel for agriculture and forest research under the Australian Research Council, as a way of getting more funds into agricultural research.