Looking for a Career in Agriculture?

This means your GCSEs. It’s tempting to think that school doesn’t matter, that a vocationally dominated profession such as agriculture needs hands-on skills and nothing more, but you’d be wrong. You need your maths, and you need your English (Language) GCSE grades to be C ideally.

Why? First, you need to be literate enough to apply for jobs otherwise you’ll fall at the very first hurdle, and when you’re in them, to deal with paperwork and other issues.

Second, you need to be numerate enough to look after your own finances and life, let alone that of the business you may be working for. If you struggle with either of these, be honest with yourself and get help – every school or college worth its salt will be able to provide additional support and opportunities for you to improve your basic skills.

Finally, these are “gateway” qualifications. Without them, it’s much harder to progress on to the next stage and therefore you’re going to find your options a bit more limited. Everything you should be doing is about options – give yourself as many as possible, and if that means knuckling down for a bit and easing up on other activities such as Young Farmers for a couple of months, then that’s the grown-up thing to do.

Decide what “land-based” means to you

This isn’t as easy as it sounds. For example – if you’re from traditional farming stock and have always wanted to follow on in the family dairy business, it makes sense to choose a general course in agriculture that will give you a good grounding in the wide range of skills you will need to have to run and support a business effectively, such as the National Diploma in Agriculture (NDA).

Be aware, though, many qualification names will be changing over the next 12 months due to new national guidelines – get advice from your chosen colleges or Connexions advisers if you’re unsure about what’s the right level for you.

Perhaps you are more interested in the mechanical aspects of agriculture, in which case you need to consider a more specialised route. At Hartpury, for example, we offer National Diploma routes in both Farm Mechanisation and Land-Based Technology. The latter is a more scientific and diagnostic route, the former more hands-on and practical. What suits your ambitions and abilities? Only you can decide.

Today’s farmers and farm managers are also accountants, business managers, marketing experts, environmental scientists and personnel managers. Often all in an afternoon.

Add to this the planning of diversification, dealing with paperwork and the practicalities of broken fences and machinery, it’s clear you’ll need a wide range of skills before you’re able to make the grade. Again this brings us back to the key point of the education process giving you options.

Get practical experience

The final part of the jigsaw (for now) is ensuring you’re going to get a decent range of practical and relevant work-related experience.

Again, the college courses you opt for are going to help – but do they give you work experience? How many of them (for example) include the traditional full year-out in agriculture in the NDA. It may sound old-fashioned, but it’ll make you a great deal more employable at the end.

Do they give you a range of other certificates and qualifications along the way, such as Loadall, Pesticide Application, First Aid, Health and Safety, Transportation of Livestock etc?

Are there other things you could be doing right now, or in the near future, to give yourself the best chance of getting the job interview when you finally break out from home? You may think you know all there is to know about dairy, but if a farm manger role comes up on a mixed farm, it would be helpful to at least have some idea of how the arable world operates.

The future of the industry needs highly skilled, able young people to drive the business forward and, if you’re willing to take that challenge on, there can be few more satisfying and rewarding prospects out there.” Source: Tips for youngsters considering a career in agriculture – 07/06/2010 – Farmers Weekly

What resources have you found helpful while developing your ag career?