Huge scope
India is predominantly an agrarian country and agriculture is something that will never go out of fashion. After all it relates to food! A study conducted in this sector suggests that by 2020 there is going to be a huge shortage of 30,000 professionals against the amount of jobs that will be made available. That figure if not anything else should be a huge incentive for those inclined to take this up.
Agriculture is a big umbrella under which farming, horticulture, floriculture, sericulture and crops are covered. It also covers the food products manufacturing industry. After doing B.Sc. in Agriculture, you may choose a job in the Government or private sector. If interested you may go in for further studies and obtain a M.Sc. in Agriculture to further your career.
Industry choices
The choices in this are clearly split between the Government and the private sector jobs. In Government sector, the choices are between the state and central job options through the Public Service Commission, Union Public Service Commission and State Public Service Commission based recruitments.
The state Department of Agriculture recruits Agriculture graduates for doing various development works linked to seeds, crops, farm implements and even working with farmers at the block level. Organizations like the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, National Seeds Corporation, Food Corporation of India, the Warehousing Corporation, the State Farms Corporation of India and Fertilizer Corporation of India offer jobs to post graduates based on their specialization.
There are many private sector industries involved in farming and related activities as well as food manufacturing, who recruit Agriculture graduates. A few options that can be explored are Plantation/Estate Managers, Food processing firms, Fertilizer Manufacturers, Agriculture machinery firms and Agricultural Product Marketing firms and other related storage, packaging firms. Even nationalized and rural banks hire Agriculture graduates as officers to deal with their agriculture related activities like farm loans and such. Even software companies who bring out solutions for this sector hire domain experts from an agriculture background to help them.
Agriculture graduates undergo training in many disciplines including specializations related to the agricultural field like Agri Botany, Agri Biotechnology, Agri Chemistry, Agri Entomology, Forestry, Agri Economics, Agri Engineering, Agri Zoology, Horticulture Mycology, Crop Production, Soil Conservation, Sericulture, Plant Ecology, Seed Technology and Soil Science to name a few.
Each of these is huge and offers a lot of scope for the graduates to explore opportunities in the related industries like Agriculture Marketing, Forestry, Home Science, Horticulture, Food Science & Technology, Sericulture, Dairy Services etc.
The typical roles
The various roles that are available to you in the Government and private sector are:
- Agriculture officer
- Plantation Manager
- Territory Manager
- Agricultural Research Scientist
- Development Officers
Salary Range
The average starting salaries are generally in the range of 2-4.5 lakh rupees per annum depending on the organization, the post, the location and the sector etc. As you grow in your career it can easily go up to 9 lakhs per annum in a couple of years. With the recent pay commission implementations, especially in the government sector, the salary is certainly an attractive factor to take up the job. And if this is where your passion is, you should pursue it, for, you are indeed bound for a dream career.
