Career Opportunities and Challenges in the Agriculture Biotechnology Industry
By Gitanjali Hazarika
Because of our ever-increasing population that is predicted to reach eight billion by 2020, the need for food will remain a top priority, transcending all socio and geo-political boundaries. The increased demand for food will call on agriculture, specifically, to act as the biggest source of industry. And with the increased demand for foodstuff, better-quality yield and huge agricultural output will be required. (Though there has been vast improvement in the sector thanks to the improved quality of seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers.)
Act Now! Activate a FREE three days trial to BiotechCrossing.com, because you know how important it is to know about all the jobs.
The field of agriculture-based biotechnology is evolving each day, offering numerous career options.
This is where the agriculture biotechnologist steps in. Agricultural biotechnologists are professionals who provide a set of tools, which, if incorporated suitably with other technologies, can be used for the sustainable development of agriculture and the food industry as a whole.
Scope of the Agri-Biotech Industry
With increased R&D efforts in the agri-biotech industry, the scope of agriculture-based biotech work has become tremendous. Agriculture biotechnologists' roles are multifarious. From being people with strong scientific expertise to being good administrators and good marketers with sharp business acumens and strong communication skills, the career options for an agri-biotechnologist are vast. Choosing the right avenue is the main priority.
Nature of the Job
Today, with modern technologies like micro propagation which allows for the multiplication of virus-free plants and tissue cultures, agriculturists have successfully combated natural hindrances to productivity such soil imbalances, crop diseases, and genetic breeding. Therefore, the agriculture-based biotech industry needs people who are qualified in the fields of molecular biology, plant transformation and tissue cultures, biochemistry, plant genetics, pathology, entomology, and agronomy for trait evaluation and integration.
Career Options for Agri-Biotechnologists
The field of agriculture-based biotechnology is evolving each day, offering numerous career options. Besides employing people for research and development, the industry also caters to various other agri-biotech-related fields including horticulture, floriculture, dairying, poultry farming, and fishery. Agri-based biotechnologists can also sharpen their academic skills by working with food processing or post-harvest technology, better known as genetically modified (GM) technology.
Career Challenges in the Agri-Biotech Industry
With growing consciousness of the ills of chemically treated foodstuff, changes in approaches to farming are taking place all over the globe. The stage has been set for the advent of bio-chemicals and bio-insecticides, biofertilizers, and biofuels. Agriculture-biotechnology careers are never short of challenges, both natural and man-made. For instance, in the next two-and-a-half decades alone, the world must produce the same amount of food or more than what it produced in the last 10,000 years.
For a biotechnologist, the challenge does not end with producing sufficient amounts of foodstuff. The challenge lies not only in meeting requirements within deadlines but, at the same time, causing minimal harm to the earth. Agriculture biotechnologists have to combat odds like the depletion of precious top-soil at the rate of seven percent in 10 years in order to fulfill the increasing water requirements which will have doubled by that time.
Other Career Options
Several other career openings are available for agri-business graduates. From the more general opportunities within the agricultural and land-based sectors such as equine management, animal science, and horticulture, to global buying and trading of agricultural produce, the opportunities are vast for agriculture biotechnologists.
Heidi , Tampa, FL
I was surprised at the number of jobs I found through this website. I will recommend this job board to others.
Deborah , Fargo, ND
I found a great position through EmploymentCrossing in a very short time. I will tell others of my success.
Julie , Chicago, IL
EmploymentCrossing is too good and very user friendly. The best feature is the submission of the resume and cover letter online. The search engines are also very fast.
Stephen , Potomac, MD
EmploymentCrossing and its services are very impressive. I am grateful to the customer service representatives as they were very helpful. I would definitely recommend the website to my friends.
Stephen , Lake Oswego, OR
I appreciate the online application of resume and cover letter on EmploymentCrossing. It saves a great deal of time. The site's advance search engine is also fantastic.
To compare BiotechCrossing with other job sites
You're Brilliant, Extremely Logical, Rational and Have High Standards for Yourself
Top jobs are scattered on the websites of tens of thousands of companies, organizations and other job boards. This presents a difficult theoretical challenge that we help you overcome: By researching, structuring and logically ordering this tremendous variety of jobs in one place, we give you the ability to be resourceful and independently analyze your career options an efficient way.
You value organized information and are impatient with disorganization: Use us to analyze and evaluate the jobs you are interested in collected and organized from over 50,000 websites. You are brilliant and deserve the best. Use your analytical abilities and our site to see the "big picture" today.
Clinical Research Co-op/Internship United States-NJ-Mahwah
Assist with administration of clinical research studies for orthopaedic products. Duties include data entry, data clarification, running of data r...
Biology careers are basically any number of scientific jobs with the study of living organisms and their relationship to their environment is the focus. Research in biology serves to increase the knowledge about living organisms so as to develop new solutions for the environment and to health problems. Usually biological scientists work in teams in...
See Every Biotech Job We Can Find on the Internet!
Unlike other sites, BiotechCrossing works for you and does not charge employers to post jobs and actually goes out and researches jobs for you. The jobs you see are the jobs we find for you and not the ones employers are paying us to post.
You're Brilliant, Extremely Logical, Rational and Have High Standards for Yourself
Top jobs are scattered on the websites of tens of thousands of companies, organizations and other job boards. This presents a difficult theoretical challenge that we help you overcome: By researching, structuring and logically ordering this tremendous variety of jobs in one place, we give you the ability to be resourceful and independently analyze your career options an efficient way.
See all the jobs in your profession structured and efficiently organized in one place. Your brilliance, insight and intuition will all pay off when you see the "big picture":
Biotech jobs from every job board we can find.
Biotech jobs from every newspaper classified ad we can find.
Biotech jobs from every specialized publication we can find.
Biotech jobs from every federal, state and local biotech career page we can find.
Biotech jobs from every public interest, nonprofit and other career page we can find.
Tell us where to send your access instructions:
Today at BiotechCrossing
437 - Jobs found in last 24 Hours4,808 - Jobs found in last 7 Days12,064 - Total Jobs Found
Your privacy is guaranteed. We will never give out, lease, or sell your personal information.
BiotechCrossing - #1 Job Aggregation and Private Job-Opening Research Service — The Most Quality Jobs Anywhere
BiotechCrossing is the first job consolidation service in the employment industry to seek to include every job that exists and not charge employers to post jobs on its site.
BiotechCrossing uses sophisticated technology and manual work to comb employer websites and other job boards for jobs and bring them all to its site.