Following a one-off evidence session on land-based education
provision in England, MPs on the House of Commons EFRA Committee
are to raise concerns about national delivery of education for
agriculture and the environment.
In the session, the cross-party group of MPs were left with a
clear impression of the need for continued land-based education
provision at Newton Rigg in Cumbria, and of the wider issues
faced by the sector.
The Committee heard how a recent decline in the number of
land-based graduates, and the lack of incentives to upskill the
existing agricultural workforce could have knock-on effects for
delivering the Government’s ambitious targets to improve the
environment and the supply of high-quality British food.
The Committee has asked the witnesses for further information. It
will then be writing to the Government to press it on its
national strategy for land-based skills, and how it will support
local colleges to deliver it.
, Chair of the EFRA Committee, said:
"The Government has ambitious targets to restore woodland and
natural habits, and to deliver on its new Environmental Land
Management scheme in farming. This will be impossible without
highly skilled land managers and farmers and the institutions to
train them. My Committee will be writing to the Government to
seek answers to the issues raised today, not least the strong
calls for a national strategy for land-based education raised by
our witnesses today.”
