A new Skills for Agriculture website has been launched by CABI to help the career progression of professionals working in agriculture.
Workers, employers and educators can use the resource for a range of uses including developing job descriptions, supporting personal career planning and training needs, as well as identifying gaps in educational provision.
The Skills for Agriculture website – created by CABI with support from contributors around the world – stems from the Skills for Agriculture framework (SfA). This is the globally accepted common language for the skills and competencies for roles and responsibilities of the agricultural sector.
Building on learnings from the past
The new iteration builds on the first, with several main improvements. The skills list has been slimmed down to reduce duplication and increase usability. They are now broken down into levels, to help identify progression routes. And the skills are now mapped to courses from major providers.
Skills for Agriculture sits alongside the CABI Academy, CABI’s global training provider, which has over 16,000 registered users.
Under the CABI Academy banner, CABI provides a range of products and services that includes a suite of high-quality digital teaching and learning resources, practical face-to-face training, blended change programmes comprising of self-study and facilitated workshops and digital resources.
Enabling career progression in agriculture
Mark Berthelemy, Digital Learning Manager at CABI, said, “The original framework focussed solely on the farmer advisor types of role. With the new structure, we are now able to describe roles that might lead to being a farmer advisor, and roles that might take people further.
“These changes have been the result of a continuous consultation exercise, working with organisations and staff from around the world.”
The skills are organised by categories such as crops, extension and advisory services, relationships and business and behaviours. Each skill content includes a general description, guidance notes and level descriptors.
Find out more at the new Skills for Agriculture website.
Additional information
Main image: The Skills for Agriculture (SfA) version 2 is the new version of the global skills and competency framework for the agriculture world (Credit: CABI).
Contributors: The contributors to the Skills for Agriculture website include CABI, CNFA, Conservation Farming Unit, CropLife Latin America, Digital Green, Esoko, FAO, GIZ, Gatsby Africa, Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services, Kenya Markets Trust, PlantwisePlus, Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Board, Syngenta and Young Professionals for Agricultural Development.