Rural Skills Australia is contracted by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) to develop industry-specific career information for Agri-Food under the Government’s Careers Advice Australia (CAA) Programme which commenced in 2006 and currently runs to the end of 2009.

The objective of the programme is to improve the quality and availability of industry-specific career, skills needs and labour market information.

More information is available at  Career Advice Australia

The National Industry Careers Specialist (NICS) function for Agri-Food is undertaken by RSA and there are nine other NICS employed by other organisations.  The NICS  provide career information to the network of 57 Regional Industry Career Advisers (RICAs) for distribution to 213 Local Community Partnerships (LCPs) across Australia.  This information is then distributed to career advisers in schools within the LCP coverage.  It is an ideal system to provide up-to-date and informative career information to the target audience of 13 to 19 year olds.

RSA also employs 6 of the RICAs – two in NSW (based in Dubbo and Tamworth), one in South Australia (based at Nuriootpa) and three in Western Australia (based in Bunbury, Northam and Geraldton).