Gayle Tierney said the scaling down of equine studies at Glenormiston College proved  her point.

The upper house member for Western Victoria said South West TAFE’s decision to cancel a planned diploma in horse breeding at Glenormiston next year and freeze enrolments in its advanced diploma of horse management was yet another blow to regional Victoria inflicted by the Baillieu government’s TAFE cuts. 

“Denis Napthine (member for South West Coast) continues to state that the TAFE cuts will have little impact, but the reality is that important courses for our agriculture industry will now be lost,” Ms Tierney said. 

“Our farmers have also lost their local DPI (Department of Primary Industries) office in Camperdown due to the Baillieu government ripping millions of dollars out of the Department of Primary Industries.”

Ms Tierney was a member of the state government’s  inquiry into agricultural education and training, which called for more support to revitalise Victoria’s agricultural colleges.

South West TAFE’s Glenormiston campus was among the venues where the inquiry took oral submissions.

Member for Geelong Ian Trezise told State Parliament on Wednesday that despite hearing through the inquiry about the importance of TAFE colleges in providing agricultural education, the government had slashed $14.5 million from the TAFE sector in Geelong.

He said the funding cut meant TAFE courses had been cut and hundreds of jobs lost at South West TAFE and Gordon TAFE in Geelong.

Ms Tierney said she had been told Colac students studying certificate III in agriculture and dairy production at Gordon TAFE could not complete their studies because of funding cuts to the facility.

The inquiry into agricultural education in Victoria found the number of students graduating from agricultural education and training courses was not meeting the agriculture sector’s demand. It said the state’s agriculture sector was experiencing skills shortages across a number of occupations and industries.

The inquiry said enrolments in undergraduate agriculture courses in the higher education sector had significantly declined in Victoria during the past decade.

Research presented to the inquiry estimated only about 700 people graduated from agriculture-related degrees each year throughout Australia, compared with an estimated 4000 advertised agriculture jobs.

The acting chairman of the Victorian Farmers Federation’s Young Agribusiness Professionals (YAP), Chris Walsh, said the low number of students doing equine studies was a concern when the horse industry in Australia was “huge”.