AGCO and Forces Farming are partnering, to promote the recruitment and retraining of ex-military, reservists, and non-agricultural engineers, for engineering roles in agriculture and horticulture.
The initiative will offer those with other industry experience and/or qualifications the option to move into a new area of business with further career opportunities.
Richard Charles, AGCO’s dealer readiness and business development manager, said: “There are a lot of very skilled engineers out there who currently don’t consider agricultural engineering as a career path. We’ve partnered with Forces Farming to promote the industry and retrain men and women from the Armed Forces to bring new talent into the industry.”
Forces Farming founder, Jeremy Gibbs explained: “The link between the Armed Forces and Agriculture goes back a long way, but these roles aren’t promoted to serving personnel as a career choice when they think about resettlement.”
Mr Gibbs said AGCO’s support is ‘extremely positive’ for ex-military personnel: “For anyone who wants to work outside and have a satisfying job with a great career path, they should get in touch.”
Forces Farming introduces personnel to the agricultural sector via insight days and experience events. Following this, Forces Farming will help co-ordinate experience placements or shadowing opportunities, across the country, at AGCO dealerships. AGCO will also offer assessments and specific training plans to support individuals in areas of training that need focus.
Mr Charles concluded: “Our target with this new approach is to make sure that if someone has experience in engineering and wants to move into agriculture, we recognise their prior knowledge and train them accordingly: providing skilled engineers for our dealers and future talent for AGCO.”