Look into my eyes: TFGA Conference …

If you think that all you will need to keep ahead of the pack in farming in the next 10 years or so will be the ability to use a computer keyboard and a mouse, think again. They are both likely to be redundant technology.

Think instead of social media and networking, virtual worlds, augmented reality, crowdsourcing and geotagging.

Daunted? Don’t be. All will be revealed at the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association conference at Country Club Tasmania in Launceston from July 11-13.

Among the guest speakers is Morris Miselowski, an Australian business futurist of high repute. Morris has been to the mountain and has seen what there is to see.

He says that in the next 10 years we will see the equivalent of 100 years of change. By 2020, 60 per cent of the workforce will be doing jobs that don’t yet exist, in industries that haven’t been created.
What will that mean for Tasmanian agriculture? You will not want to miss what he has to say.

“Morris Miselowski inspires organisations to get out of their comfort zones and to embrace the future before their competitors do,” says TFGA chief executive Jan Davis.

“We could stick our heads in the sand and say that either change is not going to happen or we will deal with it when it does. That’s not a professional attitude. Forearmed is forewarned. We have to know what the future has in store. That is the very essence of farming.”

Morris Miselowski heads a star-studded cast of speakers at the TFGA conference, which is considered Tasmania’s leading industry ideas forum. It has special relevance in this Australian Year of the Farmer, which fosters a broader awareness in the wider community of the role that agriculture will play in our everyday lives in the years ahead.

Other conference speakers include:

• Premier Lara Giddings
• Mick Keogh, executive director, Australian Farm Institute
• Jock Laurie, president, National Farmers Federation
• Philip Bruem, Director, Australian Year of the Farmer
• Roma Britnell, Winner of the Australian RIDIC Rural Women’s Award
• John Kerin, chair of the agricultural research body, the Crawford Fund

ABC Talking Heads presenter Peter Thompson will be the facilitator for the Q&A sessions.

Registrations ( http://www.tfga.com.au/2012-tfga-conference/ ) have now opened.
Jan Davis, TFGA chief executive