Often when people think about agriculture, they immediately think about farmers tending to their paddocks and looking after crops or livestock. You may be thinking I don’t want to be a farmer, so agriculture isn’t the right career choice for me. Have a read over the three main reason why I think agriculture is a great industry to work in and your mind may be swayed. You will soon see why agriculture is a great place to be.

The global population is growing and people will always have to eat. One of the biggest problems in agriculture today is trying to understand how we will feed the population tomorrow. A huge part of the agricultural industry is devoted to trying to solve this problem. In the long term, demand for agricultural workers is only going to rise, and with it, the job opportunities and salaries will too. 

 Agriculture isn’t just farming, there are an extensive range of career opportunities including in banking, advisory, plant sciences, technology, soil sciences, and many more. In fact, there are currently 83.3K agricultural jobs in New Zealand (Statistics NZ, 2021). The food and beverage sector rests on the backbone of the farming sector, which means in agriculture, there are jobs for everything from farm to table. Plus, there is a whole range of industries supporting the fashion industry, such as fibre producers and researchers. On top of this, there is a large agricultural supplies industry which specialise in selling inputs, including chemicals, seed, fertiliser and machinery to farmers. All of these need research and development teams, marketers, and IT experts and so the job opportunities go on. There is a job waiting for you in agricultural sector, no matter what your skillset is.