Careers in Agriculture
Agriculture powers some of the world’s largest industries 🏭
The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food and other products is a core component of agriculture. Agricultural products are used in the food industry, textile industry, medical and biotechnology industries to name a few, and the range of industries and people involved in agriculture is even wider.
When you think of agriculture, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? I’m guessing farming for most of us. And when we think of farming, what comes to our minds? A few chickens in one corner, some cows over in that corner, maybe some sheep in a pen and a very large field filled with crops. This isn’t too far off the mark, but what about all the tools and machinery needed to keep the farm going? What about where the crops and even animal products are stored? How about how they’re transported and sold? What about the diseases and pests that affect crops and animals? All these and more are things an average farmer needs to consider and manage, and also things they can’t do all on their own, the same way we can’t individually produce all the foods we’d like to eat. So, who helps the farmer farm behind the scenes? How can you, who probably thinks your field of study or career path is the furthest thing away from agriculture, and some guy growing tomatoes in a field, get involved? Allow me to show the different ways you can and might already even be involved in the agricultural industry. It’ll be quick I promise 😀.
Farmers
Firstly, we have to talk the poster boy of agriculture itself, the farmer. While most people think farming is as easy as digging a hole in the ground and putting a seed in it, then praying for rain, farmers actually have a lot of choices to make in order to get the best outcomes for their business. I’ve only scratched the surface of they have to think about in the questions proposed in the previous paragraph. So, with these big decisions, considerations and risks associated with farming, farmers, no matter how big or small their operation is, are actually CEOs. As in any business, you can’t do everything yourself, so who helps farmers out with the things they need for their operations?
Software developers and Engineers
The world is moving in a computerized and automated direction at an increasingly fast pace. While we might not be able to download carrots and bread right into our refrigerators….yet, technology is helping farming and agriculture in various ways. From drones to tractors and other machinery, formerly labor intensive methods used for routine tasks are now automated. For instance, a teenager using machine learning to help his parents sort thousands of cucumbers, improving storage and transportation facilities to minimize product loss. To agtech enterprises like Farmz2u using software services to help farmers farm better by giving them all the information and resources they need to make improved decisions, linking them directly to input vendors to access better quality seeds and fertilizer, and even building simulations to allow farmers test out their choices. These are just some ways through which engineering and software development supports agriculture. If you want to get into this space but don’t have the right resources, check out for free - yes, free - courses on sites like Googlelearn, Udacity, Udemy, Coursera and even Harvard online just to name a few, to help you get started in learning how to code. You might just be the catalyst for the next big technological advancement in agriculture!!
Vendors and Publicists
Now, we talked about vendors in the last paragraph. Retail is an important part of almost all businesses. You make something (or render a service), you need people to know you make it (or do it), then you need people to buy it (or pay for it). Someone has to act as the middleman between your customers and your product. Here’s where marketers, vendors, publicists, salespersons and even small-scale retailers come in. Food is something humans will always need, so trading food is a business venture that will never get behind the times.
Geneticists and Chemists
While eating food might be eternal, nothing is ever actually constant. As humans, we always seek to improve on what already exists, and that goes for crops and animals too. This brings us to our next career path, the way of the geneticist and chemist. Geneticist are scientists that study the genetic make-up of an organism, an organism’s basic programming if you will. You could say they’re biological programmers. One of the most prominent achievements of genetic manipulation was using bacteria to produce insulin, making the cost of insulin significantly lower, production rates much higher and thus greatly improving the lives of diabetics. Before this, insulin had to be extracted from pigs and other animals, so you can imagine how grueling of a process in terms of; cost, resources and effort, it was. Geneticists have the power to make crops last longer, grow faster, be more resistant or even immune to disease, give larger output or even grow in formerly inconducive climates. Let’s not even talk about lab grown meat, that’s another article altogether! The applications are endless and important. Geneticists tinker with the crops and animal innerworkings directly, but chemists focus more on making products that affect crops and animals externally. While geneticists manipulate DNA, chemists manipulate the molecular structures of various compounds to produce new ones. These products can have the same awesome effects as genetic engineering done by geneticists. Good to know we have people working on these things from all angles.
Educators
All these jobs must sound very intriguing and inspiring, but there’s one background players that rules them all that we sometimes forget. The teacher. The educator. The one who takes on the shared experiences and knowledge of the human race and instills it into a new generation. Imagine getting a new app or game and having to press every button in order to figure out how it worked. No tutorial, no guide, nothing! That would be tasking. Imagine if everything ever made or discovered on earth died in the heads of the inventors. The entire human civilization would never have advanced by even an inch, not to talk of where we are today. We’ve only made it this far because we keep building on a collected pool of knowledge and experiences. And teachers, tutors, lecturers, that one guy who makes great how-to-videos on YouTube, whatever you might call an educator, are the ones who help us navigate through this pool, so that we might someday add to it. So, everyone from farmers, to traders, coders and scientists have had one and might someday become one, and that’s how we’ll keep advancing as a society.
Together, all these jobs, and several others I did not mention, work together to battle something that has plagued human society for a long time, food insecurity. Ending world hunger is not a pipe dream or wishful thinking if everyone continues to fight it head on in their own way. So whatever path you might choose to take in the big world of agriculture, know that’s it’s for a noble cause, and if you’re more business orientated and not really big on saving the world, (even though there’s no reason you can’t do both) as I’ve said, humans will always need food, so agriculture is an industry that will never drown in the sands of time. The tools of the trade might change, but the core remains the same.
Get in touch to learn how Farmz2u helps farmers advance through its software solution while playing the role of an educator too! And keep up to date with our work on our social media pages.
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