Livings Off The Land

By RUSSELL RAY The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jun 4, 2007

Thinking of a career in agriculture?

If you are, images of pitching hay, slopping hogs and small paychecks probably come to mind, chilling your penchant for work in the field.

But agricultural jobs have moved well beyond the farm into the worlds of high finance, science and marketing.

Today, those who specialize in agriculture can end up in well-paying jobs managing golf courses, analyzing financial markets for Wall Street and developing new breeds of plants to improve food production.

Opportunities in agriculture-related jobs are abundant and those with the right skills are in high demand, experts say.

In fact, the number of job openings in agriculture exceeds the number of qualified college graduates each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"We have seven to nine great positions for every student we graduate," said Terril Nell, chairman of the Environmental Horticulture Program at the University of Florida.

Of the 52,000 agricultural job openings available for new graduates each year, only 32,000 will be filled by new graduates, the USDA said in its report.

Jennifer Parrish, who earned a bachelor's degree in environmental horticulture from UF in 2003, was hired immediately after graduation by Agri-Starts Inc., a biotech company near Orlando that sells young plants to wholesale nurseries.

"They were recruiting me pretty hard core," said Parrish, who minored in agribusiness.

As director of marketing, the 26-year-old said she earns more $35,000 annually. That's well above entry-level pay in other fields such as psychology, English and biology, said Mark Rieger, associate dean of agriculture at the UF.

"Those were coming in at $28,000 a year," Rieger said.

Meanwhile, agricultural curricula now provide business training, in addition to teaching crop production skills.

"We've turned it into a business management program related to environmental horticulture," Nell said. "In the state of Florida, it's a $15 billion industry, not counting golf courses."

Entomologists, foresters and large animal veterinarians also are in high demand, Rieger said.

"There are about 15,000 jobs nationwide that go unclaimed by graduates from agricultural schools each year," he said. Figures for individual states were not available.

Reporter Russell Ray can be reached at (813) 259-7870 or rray@tampatrib.com.