Agriculture's Graduate Shortfall: 'We should be graduating three times as many students as we are now'
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
So says the associate dean of the Ontario Agricultural College in the wake of a report showing that industry demand for agriculturally-savvy graduates is substantially greater than the number of students it is producing
by DAVE PINK
After four years studying at the University of Guelph and a steady stream of summer-time employment, Rebecca Hannam and Eric Martin barely had time to draw a deep breath before being thrust out into the working world.
Their studies wrapped up in April. Within days, they started the jobs they had agreed to accept months earlier – Hannam with the Royal Bank in Fergus, north of Guelph, as an agriculture account manager trainee and Martin as a western Ontario sales agent for Purina Feeds.
In June, they'll be back in Guelph to formally accept their degrees. Each will receive a Bachelor of Commerce in Agricultural Business. And so it goes for young people with agricultural degrees or diplomas. The industry just can't get enough of them.
"We're in a fairly small program, but it seems that we're in one that's in high demand," said Hannam, in the days just before her schooling ended. "I knew there would be opportunities. I just didn't realize the extent of them."
Prospective employers had been talking with her for the past couple of years, before she agreed to join the Royal Bank around Christmas time. "They know we have other offers and that works to our advantage," she said.
Hannam grew up on the family's cash-crop farm not far from Guelph and, while she considered taking a business degree elsewhere, the lure of an agriculturally-focused education at the home-town university was just too strong. She is the fourth generation of her family to have studied at Guelph.
Martin tells a similar story. He grew up near Ripley, in Bruce County, where he helped out on a neighbour's dairy farm and was a member of the local 4-H club. He considered the business programs at other universities but followed his heart to Guelph, where summer jobs came easily and job recruiters seemed anxious to speak with him. "Having all of these options is a good problem to have," he said.
Neither of the two can figure out why the university's Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) has had difficulty attracting students in recent years. Given the value of their education, they think the OAC should have a long line of applicants. "Once people got a taste of what we have here, they'd love it," says Martin.
"I think the perception people have of agriculture is very narrow," adds Hannam. "But agriculture is huge. The food industry is huge. Jobs will always exist in agriculture." And the placement record for OAC graduates speaks for itself. "One hundred per cent employment just doesn't happen everywhere," said Hannam.
The mission at Guelph's Ontario Agricultural College has never been clearer. The OAC opened for business in 1874 and, while agricultural training is provided at a number of community colleges and some other universities, it remains the province's biggest and best known agricultural college.
Its mission involves educating the people who will become responsible for the continued prosperity of Canada's agriculture and food industry. The major complication is the lack of agriculturally-savvy graduates to fill the growing number of jobs in the country's agri-food industry.
"The demand is higher than the number of students we're producing," says Jonathan Schmidt, the associate dean (academic) at the University of Guelph agricultural college. "We do know our graduates have no difficulty finding employers and that there has been no shortage of opportunities. Now we have solid evidence."
The "evidence" is a report prepared for the OAC and released in February, called "Planning For Tomorrow for OAC; Input from Industry." In consultation with more than 100 farm organizations, agricultural suppliers and service providers, banks, farm product marketers and processors, the report prepared by the JRG Consulting Group concluded that high-level, well-paying jobs in the industry are going begging because there aren't enough qualified people to fill them.
"The data suggests we should be graduating three times as many students as we are now," says Rene Van Acker, the OAC's associate dean (external relations) and one of the instigators of the study.
"We wanted to gauge what these companies and organizations were thinking, and they were bullish on their needs, projecting growth of anywhere from 10 to 20 per cent. There had been a sense that this was true because of the anecdotes we'd heard, and we've always known our graduates got jobs. But we had never quantified the demand that's out there."
Constant shortage
The industry is ready to hire everyone from agronomists and geneticists and pest management experts to commodity market analysts and food industry managers. The people needed for these jobs have typically come from the University of Guelph and its affiliated colleges of agriculture in Ridgetown, Kemptville and the French-language campus at Alfred, east of Ottawa.
The report details that the industry currently needs about 500 new diploma-level graduates in agriculture each year. The affiliated colleges produce just 400.
As well, the industry needs a yearly supply of 250 to 330 bachelor's degree- level graduates in agriculture and another 50 to 90 in food processing. These days, only 100 graduate from the OAC's program each year and another 30 in food science. In addition, potential employers report a constant shortage of people with graduate-level degrees.
Those statistics concern the University of Guelph and should worry anyone involved in food production and distribution. And it's not just industry that needs these people, but farmers as well.
"Being a primary producer is a technically demanding occupation," says Schmidt. "It requires a lot of skill and understanding, and these people rely on the information from specialists that are well versed in the needs of those working in the sector. We are in the business of providing highly skilled people who will be moving into these roles," he says.
"Modern agriculture is not a simple task. The risks are everywhere. Farm operators need the ability to deal with a high degree of uncertainty, in everything from commodity markets to pesticide applications. We are training the people to cope with all of that."
The real problem, both Schmidt and Van Acker acknowledge, is that too few high school students are stepping up to take that training. Enrolment in OAC programs began sagging in the 1990s and has only recently seemed to have turned the corner. In fact, this year's graduating class is not even half of what it was when OAC enrolment was at its peak.
There are several reasons for that decline, Van Acker says, including the reluctance, even among rural students, to pursue an agricultural career. "Farmers themselves are discouraging their kids from going into farming," he believes. "They're pushing their kids away from agriculture, but that is a misguided push. The agriculture sector is growing and we need the best people we can get.
"There is still the perception that we are training people for farming. Some of them will do farming, but the vast majority of our graduates will work in industry. There are some very good jobs out there. They are solid. They have a future. Many of them allow a person to work in an urban environment, and they are quite well paid."
A recent feature on Yahoo's website, based on the perceptions of U.S. writer Laurence Shatkin, author of "The Ten Best College Majors," listed agriculture as the most useless of degrees. Animal science and horticulture ranked fourth and fifth on Yahoo's list of worst-to-have degrees. But the facts say otherwise, counters Van Acker.
"The fatal flaw in his thinking is the assumption that people with agricultural degrees will go into farming and, because there are fewer farms, there will be fewer jobs. Less than five per cent of our graduates become farmers," he says. "Part of the misunderstanding is a belief that, if someone is employed in the agricultural sector, they are a farmer."
The traditional chasm between Ontario's rural and urban dwellers also plays into the perceptions surrounding an agricultural education. "The general public's awareness of the jobs in this sector is not that high," concedes Schmidt. "The opportunities here are varied and diverse, including banking, insurance and real estate, where there is a need to have an understanding of agriculture, the industry sector and how it works. High school students need to be presented with these opportunities."
Reaching students and teachers
Enter Jason Tran, who joined the OAC staff in 2009 as its liaison officer. His job, though he's not exactly a recruiter, involves bringing high school kids to Guelph to show them all the OAC has to offer, and to get out into the province to meet with high school teachers and guidance counsellors to speak about the advantages of an OAC education.
"It's really just a matter of getting them here and showing them what's available," says Tran. And it's working, he says. Interest is growing, and not just in the rural schools but in the greater Toronto area as well, says Schmidt.
Tran is specifically targeting schools in the GTA, outside of the OAC's "normal catchment area," in rural Ontario, Van Acker says.
There is real interest from students who want to be involved in food, Van Acker says.
Van Acker says he runs a research program and only one of four students, who are of course interested in agriculture, has a rural background.
The Ontario Agriculture College's ability to recruit for its own programs is limited. Co-operative agreements between Ontario's universities and high schools allow for universities to recruit as a whole and "that it will all be coordinated." That prevents the OAC, for example, "from striking out on our own," Van Acker explains.
The OAC can try to influence students who take part in "the specialist high skills majors program."
According to the Ontario ministry of education website, this program "lets students focus on a career path that matches their skills and interests" while getting their Ontario Secondary School Diploma. The program began in 2006 with five majors and now has grown to 18. Listed in alphabetical order, agriculture is at the top. There's also a "horticulture and landscaping" major. The OAC is also interested in environmental studies and business, Van Acker says.
The ministry of skills and education allows and even encourages liaisons between high schools and institutions of higher learning, Van Acker says. The OAC, in fact, provides professional development for the high school teachers of these programs and that allows liaising between the OAC and high school teachers and students.
High school students go to university campuses to get special training and lectures where they are exposed to opportunities for the next level of education.
The efforts of Tran are funded by donations made by previous OAC graduates through their alumni association.
There was also "a donation a number of years ago from Monsanto," and another donation from Croplife Canada. The Grand River Agricultural Society based in Elora, which runs the racetrack and casino there, gave a donation.
On top of that is a full slate of scholarships, worth $600,000 to $700,000, to students at all levels, Van Acker says.
When qualified applicants approach the OAC, they will be accommodated, assures Schmidt. "Clearly, there is a demand in the industry and we have to respond to that. It is incumbent upon us."
As for prospective students, "we want students with eagerness and enthusiasm, and a sense of moral imperative," he says. "There are a lot of high school students looking for ways to make a positive difference. What's important is that they come here with a sense of purpose."
Schmidt bristles at the suggestion that the OAC – and agriculture in general – has lost its lustre within the University of Guelph community. As one of the university's three founding colleges, he says the OAC and agricultural research remain front and centre in the university's vision. Moreover, the OAC has a loyal and active alumni association, made up of graduates of the college, which plays a significant role in university fundraising. "We shoulder a considerable responsibility for the University of Guelph," he says. BF
The jobs are waiting at Pioneer
Ian Grant never stops recruiting. The president of Pioneer Hi-Bred Limited concedes that, without a steady supply of well-qualified people, the business would be hard-pressed to keep a step ahead of the competition and meet the needs of an increasingly hungry planet. "The world will need 70 per cent more agricultural production. How do you do that?" he asks.
"It's about producing more on our existing acres, and it's about improving our agronomic practices with innovation and technology," says Grant. "We need people that can create new products, and we need people in all of the disciplines of business."
The jobs are there, he says. It's just a question of finding the people to fill them. This matters to farmers, Grant argues. "If our products can give them a five per cent better yield, that's good for them and it's good for us. Every improvement we can make in our product provides growth for them. Their growth and our growth are inextricably linked. If we provide the right product, they benefit."
Pioneer recruiters actively seek students for work terms and graduates for full-time employment – not only from the OAC, but from the agricultural schools at the University of Saskatchewan and McGill University – although Grant concedes he has a sentimental attachment to Guelph, where he earned his master's degree and doctorate. Business students from just about anywhere are encouraged to apply to Pioneer.
"Our business has grown significantly. We've got a number of openings and we are actively recruiting. Recruiting has become a big deal in this business and it behooves us to step up our game. Our goal is to develop careers over the long haul. These are well-paid jobs and we are looking for some highly talented people," he says, adding that "you don't get to be the big kid on the block if you don't have good people."
Business is good, and it stands to get a whole lot better, he says. "Between 2008 and 2010, most industries tanked, but not agriculture. It carried right on, and it's going to continue to do so," he says.
The recently released OAC report into the growing need for skilled people in the agri-food industry painted an accurate picture, says Grant, and demonstrates the need to entice young people into the industry – not only prospective scientists and marketing people, but those with strong people skills and team players that bring together and promote new ideas.
"Farming isn't glitzy, but this type of study points to enormous employment opportunities," says Grant.
Pioneer operates facilities in Chatham and Caledon. BF