Agriculture is one of the fastest-growing industries with incredible innovations. When searching for a career in this industry, you need to be armed with the right skills. These skills will make you more appealing to potential opportunities.
In addition, with the right skills, you’ll deliver tangible results that your employers will be happy about.
Developing the right skills will help you make the most of the trends in farming and the upcoming technologies. Here is a breakdown of today's top skills to develop in search of a career in agriculture.
Technological Skills
Agricultural technology has shifted how we cultivate, harvest, and distribute farm produce in significant ways. Digitization and sustainability have been a growing trend in the agricultural industry, paving the way for upcoming technologies.
Technological solutions like smart greenhouses and agricultural drones are proving to tackle major challenges in the agricultural industry. Some of these challenges include extreme weather conditions, air pollution, and high demand for food.
As technology continues to evolve, you should invest in your technological skills. Understanding how technology and farming coexist and ways to improve the processes will give great results.
Technological skills will help you take full advantage of upcoming technologies to increase efficiency and production. Knowing how technology works allows you to improve systems and be more cost-efficient.
Adaptability
When getting started as an agricultural professional, you’ll be more open-minded to new ways of doing things. As the industry shifts and evolves, you can easily implement the right changes to benefit production.
However, down the line, you may find processes that work and deliver just the results expected. It is easy to get stuck in ways that have worked before, hoping they'll always work and deliver the same results. But this approach may limit your potential and reduce your production capacity. Therefore, you should work towards adapting to new technologies and implementing new ideas.
A sense of curiosity about how innovations can help improve production will expose you to limitless potential. It will allow you to explore and advise your employers on game-changing strategies that may triple production.
An example of a fast-growing innovation is hydroponic technology, where you plant in a nutrient-rich solution instead of soil. Adopting this technology is proving to produce higher yields with a reduction of waste.
However, without developing your adaptability skills, the idea of not planting on the soil will not register well, and you'll not consider it as an option. So, adaptability skills are essential when looking to get into an ag career.
Expertise in Monitoring and Evaluation
Automation in the process of monitoring yields and estimating production is now easier, thanks to technology. The need to manually count how many plants are on the farm and the expected yields are no longer an issue.
Understanding how to implement technology to monitor crop yields is an essential skill. It will help boost your productivity and make it easier for you to keep up with the crop's health and growth.
In addition, developing the skill to evaluate processes and systems to see what works and what doesn't is important. With this skill, you can improve systems and eliminate those that don't work.
Interpersonal Skills
Developing interpersonal skills will help you improve your communication and delivery. It will impact the different interactions you have in the agricultural space. You may deal with different people, including farmers, landlords, middlemen, and consumers.
These dealings will require you to listen to all sides and ensure that you meet each party's needs. When challenges come up, negotiation skills will come in handy to help you come to a common understanding.
Agriculture jobs demand a great sense of customer service that accompanies quality farm produce. Therefore, you need to also ensure that you can handle people well and meet their needs.
Value-Added Expertise
An ag career requires constantly evaluating systems, processes, and farm products. Farming is a business like any other that should turn a profit to keep scaling and providing more to its consumers.
So, as agricultural professionals cultivating your value-added expertise will come in handy. It will help you determine what is working and what you can add to make things better and more effective.
In addition, having the skill to evaluate the best seeds, the right conditions, and sustainable solutions, will set you up for success. You'll get to plant, harvest, and distribute with more efficiency and increase quality.
Value-added expertise helps reduce a farm's costs and increase output and profit margins. So, it is an essential skill to develop to see how it impacts your output in your ag job and how much value you can bring to employers.
Marketing
Marketing is an essential aspect of the agricultural industry. Learning how to promote products to potential customers sets you up for success. It is a skill that employers are keen on since they want to find more consumers and make profits.
Therefore, when starting as an agricultural professional, you should understand agricultural marketing and implement the practices to get farm produce to your consumers. Spreading the word and building a brand is the best way to get repeat and loyal customers for the farm produce.
Marketing continues to evolve in the internet age as more social and advertising platforms emerge. Therefore, understanding the basics of a great marketing campaign and the psychology of consumers is essential.
Basic knowledge will set you up for success on whatever platform you decide to use for your marketing efforts. In addition, developing this skill will help avoid wastage and maximize the chances of selling all the farm produce.
So, marketing is an essential skill to develop that will greatly impact your success as an ag professional and increase your employer’s profits. Take the time to polish your marketing knowledge. Remember to utilize today's technology to help grow your ag career.
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