Kevin Patrick, interim director of Lantra Scotland, the sector skills council for the land-based, environmental and aquaculture sectors, has a fine turn of phrase.
Issuing a clarion call for a revitalised and energised rural workforce, Mr Patrick spoke passionately about encouraging young people to consider a career in the land-based sector and come forward to fill the gap caused by a “rapidly ageing workforce”.
He went on to warn that rural industries, including the environmental and aquaculture sectors, could not survive without “well-trained, highly skilled people. It is vitally important . . . that we work with employers to encourage more young people and career changers to consider a career in the land-based sector”.
Mr Patrick was speaking ahead of the annual land-based and aquaculture learner of the year awards which Lantra organises and hosts.
The awards, in their 12th year, celebrated at a grand bash for 140 or so guests, are open to all vocational learners and modern apprentices in a wide range of rural sectors.
The event recognises the achievements of young people and new entrants embarking on a career in the land-based sectors.
Mr Patrick is right to point to the need for new blood in farming, and indeed it is the remit of Lantra to support rural industries to develop a highly skilled workforce and continuously enhance the quality and availability of training and skills development opportunities.
Funded by the Scottish Government, Lantra’s core function is critical to the future of Scotland’s rural industries which lie at the heart of the multi-million-pound food and drink industry.
Recruiting a skilled workforce is therefore a vital outcome for the organisation.
According to its website, hard-to-fill vacancies as a proportion of all vacancies is highest in agriculture, forestry and the fishing sector at 91%.
Others in the industry recognise the challenge, none more so than Ringlink Scotland Europe’s largest machinery ring based in Laurencekirk which has been actively offering practical on-farm training to young people under a mentoring scheme, now in its second year.
Total employment in the rural sector is declining, and the need to attract new entrants is ever more pressing as the skills shortage is underlined daily.
The technological changes that agriculture has witnessed over the decades illustrate graphically the requirement for a highly trained workforce that sets it apart from the workplace of five decades ago.
And that is why there has become an increasing emphasis as farming as a career, not simply as a job.
This has been central to the innovative work done by Ringlink, and repeatedly articulated by managing director Graham Bruce.
Mr Bruce has long argued that modern farming has to be about more than simply training. It has to be about a career structure in the land-based industries.
For too long the collective mind-set of the agricultural industry has been insufficiently alive to its potential as an employer of first resort.
Its past reflected abundant supplies of labour, both regular and seasonal. That has changed over the years, and in seasonal terms is continuing to change and create new pressures.
It is wholly appropriate that a modern, dynamic Scottish countryside should seek a skilled labour force to allow it to play its vital role in the economy.
And seeking a worthwhile career is a million miles from looking for a job.
There is also a major marketing job to be done.
The rural industries have to sell themselves as dynamic components of the countryside. This requires an unequivocal expression of the fundamental role played by agriculture and the environment in helping to feed a world population which is expected to reach nine billion by 2050.
There is also the challenge to move farm work away from its historical associations of being dangerous, poorly paid, and offering little security and fewer prospects.
Modern agriculture is too easily tagged as an industry which is inherently unsafe a fact that was recently stressed by NFU Scotland when it launched the Farm Safety Scotland Partnership last month.
When the learner of the year awards get under way there is no doubt that there will be a considerable array of talent on display.
Young people who have come through the modern apprenticeship process will be able to testify for themselves what working in the land-based sector means to them, and they will have the opportunity to offer their own views on their future.
If the event turns the spotlight on a modern, forward thinking land-based sector with a great deal to speak about, it will do much to set a course for the future.