37 / 38
- 37 -
© A
g
C
areers
.
com
2017
seen. The marketplace demands people trained in plant
and animal sciences, agricultural engineering and
mechanization, genetics, supply chain management, and
natural resources and environmental management in
order to continue to improve our
innovation and efficiency.
Retailing and marketing services is the third
category of employment that is demanded in the
marketplace. It relates to the first two because much
retailing and marketing strategy resides in the decision
maker camp and is directly connected to supply chain
management. However, industrial selling and marketing
are not arts. There are principles that underlie these
activities that can be acquired as a part of a college
degree program and without sound sales and marketing
no amount of efficiency gains and technology will make
a business successful. A large percentage of the entry
positions of students from my department at Purdue are
in agribusiness or other industries in the role of sales and
marketing agents. These are great entry level positions
because they give an individual first-hand experience
with the company’s customers and its products. It is a
common starting point for someone who eventually ends
up as a top level decision maker.
My final category is the one that I work in, that of
communicator, teacher, and researcher. I would call this
the knowledge acquisition and dissemination sector. It’s
far broader than being just a university professor, and we
need brilliant people in this role to train those who will
fill the other positions that I described, not to mention
conduct research to create the new science and technol-
ogies that experts will apply in the field. There are other
employment opportunities to create and disseminate
knowledge too. Extension educators, commodity group
representatives and directors, agricultural media, K-12
educators, non-governmental agencies, and govern-
mental agencies are great employment opportunities for
college graduates with expertise in food, agricultural,
natural resources sciences, and economics. Information
is a valuable commodity and people who are talented in
communicating it are always in demand.
Today we can collect, store, and analyze large and
complex data sets in ways we couldn’t have imagined in
the past. This will drive a need for college graduates in
all of the above areas to be more data and analytically
savvy. This doesn’t mean everyone needs to be steeped in
statistics and computational programming, but it does
mean that they need to be able to interpret analytical
information and its relevance to their role. Also, new
college graduates will need to be able to give practical
insights to the analytics experts themselves to make
sure those analysts can provide meaningful and
accurate information.
Whether you lean towards the area of decision
maker, technology, retail and marketing, or teacher and
researcher, there will be increased opportunities for
employment in food and agriculture over the coming
years. It’s an exciting, and challenging, time to work
towards securing nutrition for all the occupants in
our world.
“It’s an exciting, and challenging,
time to work towards
securing nutrition for all the
occupants in our world.”