National Producer Skills and Training Needs Analysis

Summary

This project conducted social research on the skills and training requirements of meat producers to inform suitable program content and provide insights into producers' delivery needs.  The findings from this research will provide intelligence into the next generation of national extension programs with the intent to improve business skills, industry productivity and sustainability. The project combined a large-scale telephone interview survey of 500 producers with follow-up discussions on the main findings of the survey with a smaller number of industry stakeholders.
Key findings from the survey were:Producers consider that their meat production knowledge and skills are reasonably good.The vast majority of producers have an interest in improving their knowledge and skills in more than one area.The majority of meat producers have not participated in training or extension activities in the areas surveyed over the past five years.Producers have a strong preference for informal learning and accessing information from trusted sources.The majority of producers do not see a value proposition in the training and extension activities being offered to them.