Food & Fibre Careers Day
May 30, 2025
Registrations are currently closed
Learn about careers, technology and innovation in Agriculture.
This is the largest Food and Fibre Careers Event in Victoria! Looking forward to welcoming students, educators and leading scientists to share knowledge about careers in Agriculture, Horticulture, AgTech, Agribusiness and more at this interactive event.
It will run from 9.30am - 2.00pm.
2024 Event program
Location: University of Melbourne Dookie Campus, 940 Dookie-Nalinga Rd, Dookie College VIC 3647
2024 Workshop Topics
Dairy and AI
Come see the Dookie Robotic Dairy in action. Hear from our presenters about careers in dairy, from farmer to service provider. Find out what it takes to get a job as an AI Technician, learn about international opportunities and see where a career in dairy can take you!
Sheep & Wool
Head down to the Dookie Woolshed to hear Shearer Woolhandler Training’s sheep and wool experts talk all things wool handling and shearing. See the Dookie sheep been shorn whilst learning about where a career in wool can take you and how to get involved in the industry. Learn about the breeds of sheep and their wool characteristics.
Careers: woolbuyer, shearer, farmer, livestock worker, shedhand, woolclasser
Ag Innovation Panel
Meet the entrepreneurs innovating with technology to do things differently in the Food and Fibre space. Find out what they do, how they started out and what they are thinking about the future. Bring your ideas and your questions. This could be the beginning of your entrepreneurial career!
Pasture Check - assessment and livestock feeding
In this workshop we will assess potential pasture production and utilise it to predict livestock production.
Join Jeff McCormick, Research Agronomist with Charles Sturt University for a sneak peak into a career in agronomy, agricultural research, animal nutrition, or farming.
Hydroponic Discoveries: Cultivating Success Without Soil
Hydroponics, an innovative approach to plant cultivation, involves growing plants without soil, relying instead on water-based nutrient solutions.
Delve into the technological advancements driving hydroponics and gain practical experience by assembling a basic system.
Explore the career prospects stemming from this expertise such as Hydroponic Farm Manager/Crop technician, Hydroponic System Designer/Installer, Hydroponic Research Scientist, Sustainability Consultant, Aquaponics Specialist.
Get Into Ag STEM
Get into a series of fun, hands-on activities set within the context of Agriculture Victoria’s research projects. Find out how studying STEM at school links with high-tech, cross-disciplinary 21st century skills that are relevant to a range of future careers in agriculture.
Beekeeping
Learn all about bees and their importance in agriculture. Beekeeping is a flexible enterprise, with animals, plants, pollination, bee boxes, working in the outdoors, and more!
Indigenous Foods
Come and join a cooking class to learn about indigenous foods and using native food crops in your day-to-day cooking with our Indigenous chef. Explore the opportunity to engage with local community and crop scientist to encourage the growing, distribution and eating of native plants.
Farming for the Future - Technology and Agricultural Contracting
Join the team from Wodonga TAFE to explore the latest in agricultural technology and what that means for contractors and farmers.
Paw Prints
Join the Animal Science team from GOTAFE and undertake a range of hands-on practical activities including:
- Blood smears - red cell counts,
- Dog physical examinations,
- Animal bandaging
Animal Science careers include Vet Nurse, Caring for animals in workplaces such as animal shelters, kennels, catteries, sanctuaries and Vet Clinics, Pet shop worker, Pet Exerciser, Assistant pet groomer and more.
Livestock Nutrition
Join the team from Wodonga TAFE to find out what it takes to keep livestock thriving and the broad range of careers that skills in livestock nutrition can offer.
Agribusiness Careers Panel – Future Careers in Agriculture
Meet our panel of local agribusiness and industry professionals to hear about their career journeys and what it’s like to work in their businesses. How did they get from school to where they are now? What does their average day look like? This is a great opportunity to ask all your burning questions about being in business in the food and fibre sector.
Drones
In this workshop we will go through some common applications for drones in agriculture including mapping, collecting crop health data, and doing chemical applications with DJI drones. We will also do a demo flying the DJI T40 Crop Spraying Drone.
Viticulture
Learn to prune and train vines to get the best quality grapes to ensure quality wine. Find out about Australia’s viticulture industry and the types of jobs available that could take you to jobs all around the world.
Farriery Demonstration
Join the Farrier team from GOTAFE and watch the industry experts in action, including:
- Shoe application onto cadaver horse legs
- Shoe making
Farriers provide equine hoof care and shoeing in a range of equine areas including horse studs and general horse owners. Farriers are generally self employed, working autonomously in a range of equine related enterprises.
Beef Cattle handling and meat judging
Join David Bolton in the yards to learn about handling cattle. Find out what cattle breeders and beef producers look for in their cattle and how meat is judged. This workshop will introduce the skills useful to a career as a farmer, feedlot worker, cattle breeder, stock and station agent, livestock handler and more.
Sweet Science
How do you test for sweetness in fruit? Smell? Looks? Taste? Traditionally, these senses have all been used to determine if a crop is ready to be harvested and eaten. However, producers now have access to a more conclusive, and scientific answer. Students will be able to use all their senses to decipher which fruit they would believe to be the sweetest, based on appearance and flavour and compare this to the results from a simple sensor.
Sheep handling
Come down to the sheep yards, where Emma and Tamara will teach you about the exciting world of sheep! Whether you want to work outside or inside or a bit of both, there are plenty of career opportunities in sheep to explore. Come and learn about low stress sheep handling techniques, flight zones and how to tip a sheep over. Emma and Tamara will also explain how they got into the sheep and wool industry, and what they do now.
There might even be a sheep dog or two to pat if you're lucky!
Find out where a career in livestock can take you, with jobs including livestock buyer, farmer, breeding specialist, researcher, stud sheep and more.
Tractor Code Creator
Precision agriculture technologies are being used to increase yields, reduce waste and labour costs, and minimise environmental impact. Coding, the process of generating instructions that a computer can understand and execute, is used to automate tasks, solve problems and provide new approaches to the precision methods used in agriculture. Autonomous tractors are an example of this technology that can automatically steer, control speed and perform tasks with precision. Students will experience how coding is used to provide instructions to an autonomous vehicle when they design, test and iterate a code for an Edison robot to follow using Scratch computer programming language.
Bug Detectives: Unravelling Nature's Secrets in the Orchard Ecosystem
Put your detective skills to the test in our orchard bug identification challenge! During the orchard tour, we will encounter a diverse array of insects and arthropods inhabiting the ecosystem.
Equipped with stereo microscopes and identification guides, you will embark on a thrilling quest to identify and classify various bugs.
This interactive activity not only enhances observational skills but also highlights the crucial role of insects in horticultural ecosystems.
Possible career outcomes could include Entomologist, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) specialist, Agricultural Extension Agent, Orchard Operations supervisor, Orchardist.
Paddock to plate in the pork industry
Join the team from Rivalea’s pork division JBS and get hands on with all things pork. Personnel from Farms, Feed mill, Research & Innovation and Meat Processing will take you through the key careers from paddock to plate, from farming to research and innovation, finance, human resources, environmental sciences, animal husbandry, meat processing, quality assurance, marketing, logistics and distribution.
Operational Disease Ecology: tracking, responding to and defeating an infectious disease incursion in livestock.
Join AgVic’s veterinarian and laboratory scientists in their state-of-the-art van to learn all about field diagnostics and control of emergency animal diseases. The forward diagnostics van is used to take molecular diagnostic techniques into the field – particularly in fighting emergency diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease.
Careers in this field include Veterinary Science, Veterinary Medicine, Laboratory science, diagnostic/forensic science.
Designing Plants for Space: Sustainable farming off Earth and on Earth - Future foods, materials, and medicines
Explore how you can grow plants for space and how this can be used back on Earth to grow plants more sustainably. Using models, mini-investigations and knowledge of plants to design the ideal Space crops and think about the impact this might have for Earth.
Careers in this field include plant biology, sustainable farming, vertical farming, protective cropping - everything from growers and breeders to synthetic biology, robotics and coding, engineering, astro farming, and nutrition.
Questions
Students: Ask your School Careers Advisor.
Schools get in touch with Program Coordinator Mel Elliott at NE Tracks LLEN:
mel.elliott@netracksllen.org.au
Extra info
Want to find out more about careers in this industry?