Career Options After B.Sc in Agriculture

Interested in making a career in agriculture, but not sure how or where to start or even what your options are? Here are a few options that you may explore!

Agriculture is a vast and diversified industry and includes all areas of farming, crops, horticulture, floriculture, sericulture, and manufacturing of agri-products such as all food products, cash crops and natural fibres, as well as the new fields of agri-business.

Career Options after B.Sc in Agriculture

After doing your B.Sc in Agriculture, you can take up a wide variety of jobs. In the government sector, specialists in this field can be employed by the Central and state departments of agriculture. As agriculture is a state subject, graduates are recruited by the Department of Agriculture in states for development work with regard to crops, seeds, farm implements, and extension work with farmers at the block development level.

Recruitment to these posts is through the State Public Service Commission, and the educational requirements are a degree in agriculture or allied fields. However, if you do an M.Sc in agriculture or rural management, there are many more career options depending on the area of specialization in post graduation. There are job openings in organizations such as the National Seeds Corporation, Food Corporation of India, the Warehousing Corporation, and Fertilizer Corporation of India, and so on.

With the increasing commercialisation of agriculture, corporate houses require individuals who have done their post graduation in agriculture and allied fields, rural management or a combination of agriculture, economics and management. These are essentially the industries handling food processing or marketing of agricultural products, banks, insurance companies, and those in storage, packaging and warehousing of agricultural products.

Nationalised banks and rural banks also hire professionals from this field. You can also do an MBA in Agribusiness or Rural Management. With the entry of agri-retail outlets for providing fresh farm produce to the urban consumer, there is a need for people trained in the handling and processing of perishables for the domestic and export market.

The growth of the agri-sector is also generating a need for professionals providing a range of other services, such as export and import, rural banking, credit, financing agri projects, insurance, logistics, water management, research and development, and rural energy. There is enough scope for self-employment in this sector.

-- Usha Albuquerque

Source: hindustantimes.com