AS WE career into this year's Royal Highland Show, it seems fitting that the show's president, Sir Crispin Agnew, has made the other meaning of the word 'career' into the raison d'etre behind is tenure in the post.

As you can see in this issue (on our lead story on page 4 and in our look at the workings of RHET, on page 82) making agriculture a career choice for youngsters is not an easy task.

However, if we learn anything from RHET's sterling work in encouraging young schoolchildren to view a measure of farming life through its classroom and farm visit work, it is that youngsters are fascinated by the machinations of the industry. They DO find it interesting and it is later in life that age-old prejudices and peer pressure come into play

That young children find agriculture to be captivating, has to be 'a good thing' for an industry beset by the notions – which are deeply held within the career specialists in secondary education – that it either does not pay well or that it's nothing but hard and dirty graft.

This is where the JobFarm initiative should hope to dovetail with RHET's success in nurturing interest in young children, by encouraging the young adults they will become to consider a career in agriculture.

Believe it or not, the industry is actually on the cusp of becoming a 'sexy' career opportunity. There can't be many industries where young people will get the chance to drive computer-packed machines bristling with space-age technology that are worth £250,000 one day and be flying a drone over crops the next day to identify hot spots of disease or infestation.

Or they could be studying a computer screen which is highlighting to them that a dairy cow dropped two litres of milk per day, or which beef cows in the herd need culling because of poor performance by either them, or the calves that they produce.

In this case, it really is a case of reaping what you sow.

Good luck

NEXT WEEK's show will also be the place where dreams will come true and hopes will be dashed – more so the latter – in the charged atmosphere of a ring at the Highland.

One things is for sure, it appears more and more that young people are in the driving seat in the industry of showing livestock – which emphatically contradicts what many sceptics thought in the 1980s and '90s. 'Showmanship was dead', they said.

In this, the Scottish Year of Young People, it is fitting that next week it will be youth that proves them wrong!