There was been much discussion last week about the state of Britain's horticultural industry. As part of National Gardening Week the RHS prepared a report for the Government on the massive skill gap that has opened up in this sector, and BBC Countryfile ran a story asking teenagers if they had considered a career in horticulture. Their response was predictable 'gardening is for old people', 'digging is not a career', 'don't know anything about it', 'that's just manual labour' etc.
So I thought I would look up and see just what sort of jobs fall into the horticulture sector, because not everyone wants to be a gardener (strange I know, but we need to be inclusive!)
Here's what I found:
Landscape gardeners Tree surgeons/arborists Vegetable growers
Potato farmers Nursery growers Groundsman/greenkeepers
Florists Park rangers
Writers Academics Historians Educators
Marketing, PR and Media
Plant pathologists Plant breeder/geneticists Plant scientists
Environmental scientists Soil scientists Researchers Chemists
....and that was on one website in about 5 minutes!
There's a whole range of jobs out there, they are very varied and extremely important and rewarding. These jobs affect where we live, what we eat, and our impact on the world, and young people either don't want to do them or don't know about them - time to do something!
So I think we, as parents, aught to be introducing the idea of horticulture to our dear little ones. If we are talking about it then maybe the schools and careers offices will wake up.
If you are thinking of retraining or are interested in diversifying into horticulture then have a look at:
www.growcareers.info
Right, rant over - normal service will resume shortly!
Pictures from Google Images
No comments:
Post a Comment