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Next Gen
Australia’s support of international agricultural development means there are innovative, rewarding and global careers available for young Australians. The Crawford Fund offers a growing set of programs to encourage passionate next generation ‘nextgen’ students, researchers and farmers in their studies and careers and into volunteering opportunities in agriculture for development.
We deliver opportunities through our partnership with Researchers in Agriculture for International Development (RAID) Network by providing scholarships to our annual conferences and specially developed scholar activities; through our student awards; and, by providing volunteering opportunities within our mentoring program.
Our activities have been given an added boost in 2019-21 with funding from ACIAR to add to the wonderful work already underway by a myriad of organisations and influencers encouraging young Australians into agriculture – we will be raising the profile of study and careers in international agricultural research and management.
A career in international agricultural research is challenging and rewarding with unlimited opportunities. Read more about what we offer below.
RAID Network
RAID Network is an active network of early to mid-career researchers with an interest in agriculture and international development, through which they share knowledge and opportunities, build research capacity, and communicate the value of agricultural research.
We value the contribution of our ‘nextgen’, with RAID having an increasingly active role in Crawford Fund activities. The Fund partners with RAID to connect, engage and support up-and-coming researchers in Australia, and while RAID operates as an independent committee of the Fund, RAID members work with us in our outreach, capacity building and State Committee programs.
RAID provides the ‘keynote listeners’ report and helps deliver the Conference Scholars activities at the Crawford Fund Annual Conference each year, resulting in young researchers mentoring and motivating university students into a rewarding, interesting and diverse career path.
A pivotal part of RAID’s vision is its public and professional presence, which is achieved through its online profile, networking events, professional development workshops and its partnership building. RAID’s membership continues to grow in leaps and bounds and the RAID website is the central location for all stories, jobs, opportunities and events for the next generation of agriculture and international development researchers, farmers and volunteers.
Scholar Program – unique learning, networking and mentoring
The Crawford Fund Scholar Program is a unique learning, networking and mentoring opportunity for young students and scientists with a genuine interest in international agricultural research and development.
If you are lucky enough to be awarded a scholarship to attend the Crawford Fund Annual Conference, you will learn from, be inspired by, and be paired with some of the leading experts and nicest people in the international agricultural development arena. And you will love it! You can read the wonderful experiences of our 2022 cohort here.
The scholar activities around the conference include personal discussions with inspiring international speakers from the conference providing career advice and the matching of personal mentors for the duration of the conference and, depending on those involved, well into the future.
The fun and informative activities are developed in partnership with young and ‘old’ agricultural scientists and RAID members.
This initiative represents one of the foundations of our efforts to encourage young Australians into international research, development and education careers for the benefit of both developing countries and Australia. Since the program started in 2010, we have had more than 400 scholars participate. You can hear some of the scholars being interviewed from our 2016 conference in the video below.
For more background on the program, read our Scholar Booklet, with a list of the 315+ alumni and some of the scholars’ experiences.
Student Awards – go, see, learn
Each of our State and Territory Committees support visits to developing countries by students, so they can gain valuable experience and expertise overseas ‘in the field’ or supported engagement with overseas work.
These awards are particularly targeted at university students in agriculture, animal production, fisheries, forestry, natural resource management or any area related to food and nutrition security looking to explore their subject area in an international agricultural project context. In one year alone, our Student Award recipients travelled to countries including Vietnam, Honduras, Timor-Leste, Tanzania, Cambodia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Malaysia and the Philippines. They researched commodities as diverse as beef cattle, spiny lobsters, cassava, fisheries, sweet potato, mango and rice, as well as areas related to biosecurity, integrated cropping systems, media and marketing.
We are particularly appreciative of ACIAR and the international agricultural research centres, for allowing many of our Student Award winners to work within their projects. Following their often life-changing experiences, our young and enthusiastic researchers write about their journey and these are proudly highlighted on our website and social media accounts.
Here’s what some of our previous recipients had to say:
Jori Bremer, University of New England
“I now have a better understanding on the local conditions and I have a better view on realistic research pathways and crucial information for the continuation of my PhD…”.
Jo Talbot, University of Tasmania
“Looking back on the trip to Vietnam, I am very grateful to The Crawford Fund for the opportunity to visit working farms and meet local farmers. Without their support I wouldn’t have been able to get such a valuable insight into beef-production in Vietnam.”
Laurelle Neugebauer, Curtin University
“Throughout my visits to many other farmers and associates I grew to understand the large complexities faced by these people. This was often confronting whether their constraints were related to colonisation or current issues such as climate change.”
Recipients of the Crawford Fund Student Awards
2023 Crawford Fund Student Award Recipients
2022 Crawford Fund Student Award Recipients
2021 Crawford Fund Student Award Recipients
2020 Crawford Fund Student Award Recipients
2019 Crawford Fund Student Award Recipients
2018 Crawford Fund Student Award Recipients
2017 Crawford Fund Student Award Recipients
Mentoring and Volunteering – helping hand in hand
Our mentoring program matches experienced Australian mentors and volunteers with overseas partners working together on agricultural projects. We have regular and dedicated programs delivering outcomes with long-term benefits in developing countries including Cambodia, Laos, Timor-Leste and Vietnam, as well as other opportunities as they arise through networks and training programs in other countries and with other projects.
As part of our extensive mentoring program, the Crawford Fund helps to place, develop programs with, and encourage Australian agricultural volunteers, to work in developing countries to build local capacity.
Volunteers usually come through the Government’s Australian Volunteer Program within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Volunteers from this program work in developing countries to build local capacity, but volunteers could be in country more short-term as New Colombo Plan scholars or, as self-funded volunteers.
Volunteering opportunities are listed by DFAT on the Australian Volunteers Program website, and the Crawford Fund also promotes opportunities and advertises vacancies.
Check some of our more recent videos:
Young Voices In Agriculture for Development features four keen NextGen-ers talking about what it’s like working for food and nutrition security in Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia.
Why Choose Agriculture for Development? highlights the experiences of members of the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture, and their insights into why they think students should take on studies and careers in agriculture for development.
Volunteering is the perfect way to gain on-the-ground practical experience in your chosen field. The experience will fast-track your learning, boost your career opportunities, and, in the field of international agriculture, you will see the immediate need and impacts you can deliver well into the future. As often happens, you volunteering may evolve into you mentoring…and the Crawford Fund can walk that journey with you.
Contact us to find out more.
Our Boosted NextGen Work
Our activities have been given an added boost with funding from ACIAR to support additional ‘NextgGen’ work. This new boost to our work was launched by our Chairman, The Hon John Anderson, at the opening of our conference scholar activities in August.
He explained that we won’t be reinventing the wheel but adding to the wonderful work already underway by a myriad of organisations and influencers encouraging young Australians into agriculture by raising the profile of study and careers in international agricultural research and management.
Our NextGen activities outlined above have been given an added boost with funding from ACIAR to support additional work to raise the profile of study and careers in international agricultural research and management to high schoolers and undergraduates. This new boost to our work was launched by our Chairman, The Hon John Anderson, at the opening of our conference scholar activities in August 2019 and despite COVID-19 impacting some of our original strategy, results have been beyond what we had planned thanks to the power of partnerships.
In the first year to 30 June 2020, we set out to ‘not reinvent the wheel’ but add the element of ‘international’ agriculture to activities of those who have been ably involved for some years in engaging young Australians in agriculture. The response from them all could not have been more positive. We held 14 physical or online events, almost 30 blogs were published and more than 20 videos were produced or were about to go online.
We were surprised to find so few materials to engage high school students in agriculture for development, when our experience with NextGen is that it is such a satisfying, beneficial and exciting area of study and work. Read below about our special efforts to produce new free teaching materials on global food and nutrition security for high school students
“We want to increase awareness of high school students and undergraduates of the varied, meaningful and beneficial outcomes for both Australian students, Australian agriculture and for developing countries where the NextGen is engaged in international agriculture,” said Cathy Reade, the Fund’s Director of Outreach, who is managing the project.
Before COVID-19 made its presence felt, we were excitedly engaged in a number of activities to talk about opportunities for NextGen in the agriculture for the developing world space. Our board member Prof Tim Reeves participated in the PIEFA sponsored panel at the Geography Teachers Association of Victoria’s annual conference attended by over 400 people which focused on food security, with Tim’s focus on opportunities for NextGen.
Cathy Reade, our Director of Outreach, moderated a panel with three enthusiastic students including Razlin Azmin – a former conference scholar and Jess Fearnley – a former student awardee, highlighting their work, the impact in Australia and overseas, and on them personally and professionally at the Australian Women in Agriculture Annual Conference.
The Crawford Fund WA’s coordinator Prof Lynn Abbott and three RAID members hosted a panel discussion at the Science Teachers Association WA conference in Perth. The event showcased enthusiastic experts from science, technology engineering and maths while exploring cutting edge science.
Nikki Dumbrell, a PhD student at the University of Adelaide’s Centre for Global Food and Resources represented RAID and the Crawford Fund at an event held by PrimeZone and the Primary Industries Education Foundation of Australia in Adelaide called The Food, Fibre and Foliage Education Roadshow. Nikki spoke about opportunities for the next generation to fight poverty and malnutrition around the globe, with a particular focus on her work in Vietnam. She also wrote a blog following the event.
The move to online events has been a relatively easy transition for our ‘NextGen-ers’ with a number of webinars, podcasts and videos filling the void of physical distancing. Some of our highlights include:
RAID Network member and ACIAR’s former graduate, Sam Coggins spoke engagingly on the impact of international agriculture and the diverse range of career pathways to agriculture for development, at the 2020 Agricultural Careers Expo an online event with over 1,000 agriculture and primary industries teachers, careers advisors and high school students registered. He also wrote about the experience.
A NextGen online webinar “NextGen Needed for Reshaping Food Systems after COVID-19” presented by Colin Chartres to University of Melbourne senior students and supervisors.
We partnered with Future Farmers Network to host a webinar, “Making a Global Difference” which focused on working in developing countries and its benefits to our neighbours and Australian agriculture, as well as discussing professional and personal pathways for NextGen agricultural scientists and researchers. The event included an ACIAR graduate, ACIAR project leader and ACIAR project worker.
Dr Anika Molesworth, one of our former conference scholars, not only an MC-ed this webinar, she also gave a talk at the online “International Conference on Crisis in the Livestock Industry due to COVID-19” on the topic “How COVID-19 is impacting agriculture and rural communities, and what needs to be done.” The presentation is available here (from 14:30).
A volunteer video co-branded with CSU has also been produced and gone live. Our mentor Dr Deirdre Lemerle filmed an interview with another volunteer Stephen Lang when she was in Laos earlier in the year, and before they both returned due to coronavirus. We’d like to thank The Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation for putting this video together from Deirdre’s footage in the greenhouse.
We have also presented a considerable number of NextGen blogs over recent months, which we have featured here and here.
Watch this space for other NextGen activities we have in the pipeline. We look forward to sharing further boosted ‘NextGen’ efforts with you.
Or, if you would like to support our next generation initiatives, please do so here.
High School Teaching Materials
We have no doubt that involving young Australians in international agriculture and agriculture for development has meaningful and beneficial outcomes for food and nutrition security, for the students and for Australian agriculture. However, while there are great teaching materials around agriculture in Australia, we and our partners have noted there is a dearth of high school teaching materials focused on agriculture for development and global food and nutrition security, so are working to plug that hole within our NextGen project.
Throughout the project we will be working with education consultants to develop first class project-based learning materials that link to the Australian curriculum’s priorities of Sustainability and Asia & Australia’s Engagement with Asia. They will support educators by being relevant to a range of key learning areas and subjects within English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities & Social Sciences and Technologies including agriculture, geography, economics, social sciences, and technology to ensure broad use across Years 9-12.
We hope our materials will excite educators and students to the impact of work around food and nutrition security and the broad range of career pathways to involvement.
Our materials, including detailed Educator Guides, are available FREE and we hope to see the fruit of some of the students’ work throughout the years to come.
You will find more information on the first materials, and be able to download them separately, targeting Years 9-10 and Senior Secondary on challenges and opportunities including Climate Change & Food and Nutrition Security; Climate Smart Technologies; COVID-19 & Food and Nutrition Security; and Australia – A Powerhouse of Agricultural Research.
The latest modules released cover Gender Dimensions in Agriculture; Genebanks – More than Saving Seeds; and Food Loss & Waste.
In addition to including an assessment tool/rubric in each of our teaching modules, we have now developed a consolidated list of projects, resources and videos from each module for easy reference. We hope this will assist educators in the use of the Crawford Fund teaching modules on key food and nutrition security issues and our full suite of current videos in our NextGen series. You’ll find the material here.
Educators are encouraged to share student learning with the Fund at [email protected]. With permission, we’d like to highlight the work in our networks in Australia and internationally.
We ask that you register as you download the free materials as we may be able to offer additional learning opportunities including school visits or live webinars with young people working in global food and nutrition security who can discuss their work and career pathways, and let you know when new materials have been developed.
We welcome your feedback.
For further information, contact:
Cathy Reade
Director of Outreach and Manager of the NextGen Program
Mobile: 0413 575 934
Email: [email protected]
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