Agriculture degrees still in high demand for careers

Job placement specialists say degrees in nursing and science are lucrative, while concentrations in philosophy, political science and even journalism should be shelved. But what about farming? There are those in the know who say careers in agriculture couldn’t be better. “From our perspective the outlook for the agriculture graduate is very good,” said Adam Lohrey, agriculture studies recruiter at Wilmington College. “A lot of our students are making their connections and doing the internships prior to graduating. In the past three years we’ve had 95 percent job placement rate for our graduating seniors.” Recent agriculture and natural resources graduates with bachelors’ degrees have the third lowest rate of unemployment in the nation (7 percent), according to a 2012 study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The same study found that rate even lower for graduates with advanced agricultural degrees, at 2.4 percent.  The most obvious careers are directly related to the farm or ranch. There are approximately 22 million people who work in ag-related fields in the United States.  Today’s agriculture offers more than 200 rewarding and challenging careers.  “We’ve done our research and found out that graduating agriculture students can expect to make $40,000 annually, and those in the top 15 percent academically can get as much as $60,000,” Lohrey said. “There’s growth for management at various companies these days.”...more