1. Unit 4 Career Options in Agriscience
Survey the variety of career opportunities in agriscience, observe how they are classified, and consider how you can prepare for careers in agriscience.
Note that Unit text is not visible.

2. Within your notes…
Make a list of 10 to 15 interests you currently have in terms of a hobby or future career interest.

3. Definition Agriscience Fields with ties to agriscience
All indoor and outdoor jobs relating in some way to plants, animals, and renewable natural resources
Fields with ties to agriscience
Banking and finance
Radio, television, and satellite communications
Engineering and design
Construction and maintenance
Research and education
Environmental protection

4. Plenty of Opportunities
Current agriscience outlook
Employed: about 21 million
New jobs annually: about 400,000
Impact of training
Only 100,000 jobs are filled annually by those with agriscience training
About 20% of agriscience careers require college degrees
Deleted space between 20 and %

6. Plenty of Opportunities (cont’d.)
Impact of training
Many agricultural professions require four-year college degrees
Technical college certificates/degrees open up other opportunities
Careers that help others
Processing, marketing, production, natural resources, mechanics, banking, education, writing, etc.

7. Plenty of Opportunities (cont’d.)
Careers that satisfy
Salary: dependent on qualifications
Opportunities to develop and express skills and talents
Career options: discuss with high school counselors

8. The Wheel of Fortune
Hub: production agriculture (farming and ranching)
Rest of the wheel: non-farm and non-ranch careers in agriscience

10. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Production agriculture: accounts for one-fifth of agriscience careers
Most other professionals: provide goods and services that flow to or from production agriculture
Allows extremely efficient supply of goods
Low percent of income spent on food in America
AU/DE: I made a new bullet from the text that was in the second bullet and reworded the text a bit:
- Low percent of income spent on food in America

11. Local Individuals in the Agriculture Field
Make a list of 5 questions that you would like to ask the individuals that will be speaking with you next week concerning their careers in agriculture.

12. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Agricultural processing, products, and distribution
Hauling, grading, processing, packaging, and marketing commodities from production sources
Cost of efforts consumes bulk of food dollar for cereal and bakery products (USDA)

13. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Horticulture
Producing, processing, and marketing fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plants
Farming enterprise: small plots
Horticultural commodities: high-labor and high-income
Accounts for over 110,000 jobs

14. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Forestry
Growing, managing, and harvesting trees for lumber, poles, posts, panels, pulpwood, and many other commodities
Career opportunities: forestry researcher, teacher, wood technologist, wood products marketer, large machine operator, etc.

15. Hot Topics in Agriscience
A career in food science
Combines science and agriculture career fields in the development of new food products and processing, packaging, distribution, and marketing of food products
Requires creativity: designing new products
Requires college education
Comparably high salaries and high demand
Deleted semicolon following “products”

16. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Renewable natural resources
Managing wetlands, rangelands, waterways, fish, and wildlife
Job requirements/desirables: appreciation for natural and scientific knowledge of plants and animals; and enjoy working in parks, on game preserves, or with landowners

17. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Renewable natural resources: career outlook
Priorities: state and regional water quality and soil conservation efforts
New opportunities: programs to preserve natural waterways

18. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Agricultural supplies and services
Selling supplies or providing services for people in the agricultural industry
Supplies: seed, feed, fertilizer, lawn equipment, farm machinery, etc.
Services: legal assistance, agricultural publications, financial advice, crop advice, etc.
Deleted extra space preceding “agricultural publications”

19. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Agricultural Mechanics
Designing, operating, maintaining, servicing, selling, and using agricultural power units, machinery, equipment, structures, and utilities
Venue: indoors or outdoors
Varying roles: employee, employer, professional

20. The Wheel of Fortune (cont’d.)
Agriscience professionals
Apply the knowledge and understanding of agriscience
Can work in any division of agriscience
Have advanced degrees and high levels of education and skills
Computers in agriscience
Applications: machinery management, farm financial records, livestock management, farm/ranch inventory management, precision farming, etc.
Changed “Require” in third bullet to “Have”

21. Within your notes…
Based on the various career areas within agricultural science we’ve discussed so far, which area do you believe you have the most interest in and why?
How do you believe you could obtain a career within that agriculture field?

22. Preparing for an Agriscience Career
Many schools
Emphasize career education
Important to consider how to meet the requirements to get started

23. Agri-Profile Agriscience teacher Shortage of qualified teachers
Requirements: strong background in agriculture and related sciences and a 4-year degree in agricultural education

24. Preparing for an Agriscience Career (cont’d.)
Agriscience career portfolio
Collection of best work: sell skills to a prospective employer
Possible portfolio components
Resumé or vita
FFA Agriscience Scholarship application
Articles and papers (published and unpublished)
Photographs and written reports of projects
Documentation of participation in community and public service activities
I moved text down a bit.

25. Preparing for an Agriscience Career (cont’d.)
Possible portfolio components
Personal letters and citations for services
Letters of recommendation
Personal and career goals
Action plan for goal completion
Newspaper articles, video clips, and sound bytes of projects
I moved text down a bit.

26. Agri-Profile Career area: agriscience technician or professional?
Technician: broadly trained in plant and animal sciences; employable in many fields; hands-on experience; specialized training beyond high school
Professional: bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate-level degree
Hyphenated doctorate-level

27. Preparing for an Agriscience Career (cont’d.)
Career plan while in high school
Take agriscience and college-prep classes
Join FFA
Participate in leadership, citizenship, and agriscience activities
Develop a broad, supervised, occupational agriscience experience program
I moved text down a bit.

28. Preparing for an Agriscience Career (cont’d.)
Career plan while in high school
Acquire hands-on, skill-development experiences
Conduct an agriscience research project; enter it in the FFA Agriscience Scholarship and Agriscience Fair programs
I moved text down a bit.

29. Preparing for an Agriscience Career (cont’d.)
Career plan after high school
Obtain an agricultural job: plan ways to get on-the-job training
Take community college courses: transferable to a college of agriculture or life sciences
Enter a two-year technical agriculture program
Obtain a bachelor’s, master’s, and/or doctorate degree: college of agriculture or life sciences
I moved text down a bit.

30. Agri-Profile
Workforce skills: what skills will you bring to your career?
U.S. Secretary of Labor: Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) report
Five competencies that students need to master
Resources: identifies, organizes, plans, and allocates resources
Interpersonal: works with others
Information: acquires and uses information
I inserted a period after the S in U.S.
Deleted parentheses in numbered list and changed to periods.

31. Agri-Profile (cont’d.)
Workforce skills: what skills will you bring to your career?
Five competencies that students need to master
Systems: understands complex interrelationships
Technology: works with a variety of technologies
Changed parentheses to periods in numbered list

32. Science Connection When I’m twenty-something!
Questionnaire: A Day on the Job in the Year 2025
How well do your current career-preparation activities mesh with your perception of yourself in the year 2025?
Hyphenated twenty-something; hyphenated career-preparation

33. Preparing for an Agriscience Career (cont’d.)
Career assistance resources
High school agriscience teachers
High school counselors
Cooperative Extension Service
State department of education
Postsecondary institutions
I moved text down a bit.

34. Hot Topics in Agriscience
Agriscience careers
Food technician/scientist
Environmental technician
Computer technician
Animal technician/scientist
Plant technician/scientist
Global positioning
System technician
Biotechnology engineer

35. Hot Topics in Agriscience (cont’d.)
Agriscience careers
Veterinarian/technician
Farm/ranch managers
Urban forester
Soil technician/scientist
Genetic engineer
I moved text down a bit.

36. Select a career you are interested in…
Working conditions
Beginning & ending salary
Chances for advancement
Educational requirements
Job Benefits (insurance, vacations, retirement, etc.)