In all industries training enables the person being trained to acquire the abilities that help to equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to perform their work to a high standard that provides them with a feeling of accomplishment, pleases their employer and helps the business, and ultimately the general community.
In Australia, primary industries training focuses on almost all aspects of training in the agricultural and production horticulture, amenity horticulture, seafood and aquaculture, animal care and management, and conservation and land management.
Information on this website endeavours to provide information that the trainee, employer and teachers require in terms of industry information, content of courses and how to go about the training process. In some cases links are provided to websites that provide information that is required which contain contact numbers within these websites from where further information can be attained.
The links section on this website can also provide a good source of further information.
Training can be divided up into both Higher Education Training and TAFE industry level training. Primary Skills Victoria handles TAFE industry level training (known as Vocational Education and Training (VET)) as well as assisting with any enquiries from specialised secondary school training. A broad overview of these qualifications is provided below, but note there is a cross-over of training between school, Vet and Higher Education Sector. For example schools may deliver up to Certificate II while Higher Education Sector facilities may be delivering Certificate IV.

 In Victoria in 2001-02 there were about 6,400 trainees undertaking training in the above sectors. In total 18.2% of all trainees in Victoria during the 2001-02 financial year in the Rural Production, Amenity Horticulture, Seafood Industries, and Veterinary Nursery Training Packages are Existing Workers.

At present there are two Existing Worker groups that make up this cohort (group). The first group is reported through the Office of Training and Tertiary Education (OTTE) as those workers, in employment, who enter into a contract of training with a New Apprenticeship Centre (NAC), but are not funded for their training delivery. The second is a larger cohort of existing workers, for whom training is occurring under purely fee for service delivery.  The size and quality of delivery to this second group is usually not reported or monitored in any way within the State system.
The first cohort of Existing Workers commonly exists as a partnership, often with private RTOs. In this instance an arrangement is struck where 50% or sometimes more of the New Apprentice subsidy is payed to the RTO by the employer for delivery of the training.
In contrast the second cohort of Existing Workers often pays for total cost of delivery themselves. This type of delivery is flexible and targeted, but can sometimes be open to abuse as there is no formal auditing of the delivery, apart from that conducted during the original registration of the RTO.
There is a significant need for training to up-skill existing workers in emerging sectors of both agriculture and horticulture.  This need has been identified through the last four Training Plans of the Industry Training Advisory Body (ITAB), the Federal Governments Skills report for rural industries and many Industry studies. Primary Skills Victoria is currently working on a project in this area. More information on this project will be found in time to come under projects on this website.