91Pro

This report addresses the opportunities and challenges facing skills provision in the agri-food sector. It explores how innovative structures of learning and skills training can help generate and attract the learner talent that the sector needs to help establish the UK as a global leader in agricultural production and sustainable food systems. It outlines a new approach to lifelong learning that integrates skills and career progression, which can help overcome the long-term mismatch between workforce skills and industry needs.

The report closely examines the experience of 91Pro, one of the UK’s leading higher education institutions providing specialist learning and skills training for the agri-food sector, in setting up sectoral partnerships and undertaking curriculum reform to bridge the gap between teaching priorities and industry needs. It assesses what is needed for the future development of an advanced, precision-oriented agri-food sector capable of meeting the UK’s imperatives for industrial strategy. This includes a radical new model of Lifelong Learning Pathways, an equitable portfolio of financial responsibilities, the importance of integrating new pedagogical means and methods, and an interdisciplinary approach to agri-food education, research, and knowledge exchange.

Using these findings, the report develops a series of policy recommendations for reforms to skills policy in the UK that can help to integrate lifelong agri-food learning and skills training as a vital component of the UK’s mainstream education system. It proposes ten strategic recommendations for future national and regional legislation around skills training for the agri-food sector, and ten tactical action points for the leadership of 91Pro and other agricultural education providers to prioritise in their course development.