Australian agriculture employs around 300,000 people and generates over $100 billion in production value annually. It is one of the most economically significant sectors in the country, and one of the most chronically understaffed at the management level. The National Farmers’ Federation has projected a need for an additional 160,000 workers by 2030. The pipeline of experienced mid-career professionals moving into senior roles is not growing fast enough to meet that demand.
For individual farming businesses and agribusinesses, the workforce challenge is not abstract. It shows up as a farm manager role that takes four months to fill, a property running below capacity during a transition, or a succession plan that exists on paper but has no people attached to it. The businesses that navigate this well are not necessarily the largest or the best resourced. They are the ones that think about their workforce before the pressure is on.
What a thriving agricultural workforce actually looks like
It is worth being specific about this, because the answer is more practical than most workforce discussions allow for.
At the business level, a thriving agricultural workforce is not characterised by low turnover alone, although that is a reasonable indicator. It is characterised by operations where the people in management roles have genuine clarity about their responsibilities, understand the direction of the business, and can see a credible path forward for their own career within it. Where the workload is demanding but not structurally unsustainable. Where the senior leadership is accessible and makes decisions with enough consistency that the people below them can plan and act with confidence.
The operations that struggle most with retention are rarely the ones paying below market or running difficult properties. They are more often the ones where expectations were not clearly set, where the role evolved significantly from what was described at hire, or where a capable person hit a ceiling they did not know was there. These are not difficult problems to solve, but they require a degree of deliberate attention that reactive workforce management does not produce.
Hiring for the operation you want, not just the role you have
The most common mistake in agricultural recruitment at the management level is hiring narrowly for the immediate vacancy. The role needs to be filled, the brief is written around current requirements, and the search targets someone who can do the job as it exists today.
That approach works adequately when the business is static. Most agricultural businesses are not. Operations scale, ownership structures change, technology investment alters what management roles actually require, and the person hired into a farm manager role today may be expected to operate as a general manager within three to five years if the business grows as planned.
Hiring with that trajectory in mind changes the brief. It shifts the assessment toward capability and growth potential alongside current competence. It raises questions about whether a candidate has managed through change before, how they have responded when a role expanded beyond its original scope, and whether their career ambitions align with where the business is heading. These are not difficult questions to ask, but they require knowing where the business is heading, which means the workforce conversation has to connect to the business strategy conversation, not run separately from it.
For businesses with multiple properties or management layers, this also means thinking about succession at the property level. Who in the current team could step into a more senior role in two or three years, and what do they need between now and then to be ready? A business that can answer that question is in a materially better position when a vacancy does appear than one that is starting from scratch every time.
Setting people up to succeed from the start
The first months in a new agricultural management role are disproportionately important. The property knowledge, the operational rhythms, the relationships with contractors and neighbouring operations. None of this transfers automatically. A new manager who is left to find their feet without structured support will take significantly longer to reach full effectiveness, and is more likely to disengage or leave during that period.
This does not require a formal onboarding program. It requires someone taking deliberate responsibility for the transition: being clear about priorities in the first ninety days, introducing the new manager to the people and relationships that matter, and creating space for questions that a new person might otherwise not feel comfortable asking. The standard in most agricultural businesses is to hand someone the keys and expect them to figure it out. The operations that retain good people tend to do something more than that.
Part 2: keeping the people you’ve worked hard to find
Finding the right person is only the first part of the problem. Keeping them engaged, understanding what motivates them, building a culture where good people want to stay, and recognising contribution in ways that actually land, is where most of the long-term workforce value is created or lost. That is what Part 2 covers.
March Talent Partners works with farming businesses and agribusinesses across Australia on permanent placements, from operational roles through to senior management. If you want to talk through how to approach your next hire, get in touch.
