TeenAg, the high school version of Young Farmers Club, is set for a revamp, according to Young Farmers New Zealand chief executive Lynda Coppersmith.

"We have around 40 clubs active across New Zealand, and around 400-500 people have signed up as individuals on our membership platform. However, we don't do anything with it; they just support themselves.

"So we thought, why don't we make them into high school Young Farmers Clubs."

TeenAg originally began with funding from the government, with a team from Young Farmers travelling around the country to support school clubs and facilitating teachers.

That funding was pulled around four years ago, and since then, Young Farmers have kept a membership page and sign-up portal but have yet to be able to invest in the program.

That is set to change, as Young Farmers recently secured funding from an undisclosed industry stakeholder.

This means the organisation can begin to "build out" its high school arm."We have had one big player in the sector who is really interested in getting high school students more excited about farming careers.

"They have agreed to give us some funding for three years.

"Coppersmith said they are looking to source more funding for the set-up phase of relaunching TeenAg, but the program will always need to be run economically to be sustainable, and teaching staff will be required to facilitate.

"We don't want to make it too onerous to support; it needs to be something that runs on the smell of an oily rag because funding can be very much hit and miss.

"So we want to set it up in our HubSpot system as more of an online support portal, where teachers and club leaders can find events, activities, resources, and opportunities to upskill."

Funding isn't the only challenge facing the programme.

Getting schools and teachers on board has proven difficult in some instances.Sometimes, reluctance is due to a lack of staff to oversee the clubs, but often, it is due to a preconceived notion of the industry.

Coppersmith said she has encountered situations where students have approached Young Farmers wanting to set up a TeenAg club in their school, only for the school to shut down the idea.

"We had a bunch of students approach us from a girl's school, but when we approached the school, they said their girls weren't interested in agriculture.

"There's still a lot of work to be done as  a sector to show schools that aren't rural schools that this is an amazing career pathway for young people."

Coppersmith said there were still some myths surrounding the image of farming as a career.

"I've had a number of conversations with people who have said that their son or daughter is interested in going farming, but they have told them are too smart and sent them off in a different direction.

"I'm passionate about the fact that farmers of the future will have to be skilled in many different things, including technology, science, and the environment.

"It's not a low-skill trade, it's not now, and it never will be.

"So how do we create that prestige, that aspirational view of farming as a career?"

Coppersmith said one avenue to change perceptions of farming is through the FMG Young Farmer of the Year contest.

"If we can create more of a pathway to Young Farmer of the Year for these high school kids, they can get a taste of what they need to know.

"Junior Young Farmers is arguably our fastest growing section, and it's become hotly contested.

"It's a massive opportunity."

Coppersmith said that setting teenagers up for success in the agriculture sector was a factor in reinvigorating the programme.

"Farming is hard; there is a lot of financial pressure."They will need to have some good mental skills to deal with that.

"How do we give them hope that they might own their own farm one day?

"How do we give them drive?"

By Claire Inkson