career in agriculture | Arid Agriculture & Vegetable Gardening

Introduction

Food technology, yes the most favorite branch of female under-graduates to join. May be the trend differs in your country, but here in Pakistan, females of my batch and now my agriculture students are crazy to join this branch of agricultural science. In the agriculture degree program, Food Technology is consider as a premium specialization subject. If you are pursuing a career in agriculture, Food Technology is a good option.

There was a time a decade ago when I had to choose a subject to specialize among many others (horticulture, soil science, plant pathology, agriculture extension, agronomy etc.) at the end of 4^th semester of B. Sc. (HONS.) Agricultural Program. My first choice was also food technology. However, later due to unavoidable circumstances, I selected Agricultural Economics. But that doesn’t mean food technology is not my favorite anymore. The reason is simple. My love for food is not a hidden truth. 🙂

Coming back to the topic, let me introduce you with food technology. It is a branch of agriculture (and in many cases it is also regarded as branch of food sciences) that deals with the practices of production that makes food. Many food scientists consider Nicolas Appert as a pioneer who laid foundation stone of food technology when he first tried to preserve food by a canning process in 1810. In fact early food tech. procedures were concerned more with food preservation. Then Louis Pasture’s work in 1864 on evading spoilage of wine paved the path to handle food in scientific manner.

Food technology is the application of food science for selection, processing, packaging, preservation and distribution of food in a safe mode. Now at this point, question arises, what is food science then? Well food science deals with physical, chemical and biological makeup of food. It also deals with exploring reasons of food deterioration. Summarizing, food science deals with the concepts that are underlying food processing as a whole.

Career in Food Technology

Food technology is a wide field of science. As far as its career opportunities are concerned, these are vast also. Why? Demand for food is never going to end. In fact, the demand will increase with the population explosion we are witnessing globally. With the inventions of innovative modes of food manufacturing, the taste of people is also changing.

In short, today demand of food from taste perspective is different and complex as compare to 2-3 decades ago. Similarly, features like quality control and quality assurance are also playing significant role in increasing demand of food scientists.

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Introduction

Soil is the baseline for any kind of agricultural activities. Without soil, sustainable agriculture that feed billions of people and other organisms on earth is not possible. That is why; soil is studied under its own branch termed as ‘soil science’. This article will guide you through a brief introduction of soil science as subject and career in soil science field.

Before moving ahead, let’s discuss what is soil science? It is the branch of agriculture science that deals with the study of soil as a natural resource. In this, we study the soil from all aspects including soil formation, management, classification and mapping, chemical, physical and biological properties, soil fertility and problems related to soil and exploring solutions to solve the its problems, diseases of soil etc.

Sometimes, few other terms are used in place of soil science like pedology and edaphology where pedology means formation, chemistry, morphology, and classification of soil while edaphology studies influence of soil on organisms, especially the plants.

Career is Soil Science

A person who studies soil and do practicals based on soil theory is known as Soil Scientist. Technically, a soil scientist studies the earth crust from upper surface. His/her concern is with few inches of top soil of earth. The main focus of a soil scientist is with the physical, chemical and biological properties, soil genesis and morphology. If you are planning to become a soil scientist, keep in mind that you should have a strong academic background in biological and physical sciences along with a good grip on mathematics.

Should you Choose Soil Science?

It is a million dollar question. Soil science is not just another branch of agriculture. There should be some per-requisites that should be present in a person if he/she wants to become a soil scientist. This includes;

Love of nature
Love with soil
Happy working outdoors for hours in harsh environments
Understanding of geographies and maps
Want to become an integral part of decision making processes related to soil

How to become a Soil Scientist?

There are graduate programs dealing with soil science that are offered to students who are willing to join soil science field. Agricultural universities are the ones offering these programs. To be consider as a soil scientist, he/she must have earned at least bachelor degree not diploma is soil science. The graduate then can study further and earn masters or even PhD degrees in soil science.

Globally, two choices are favorite for soil scientists. They may choose to study simple soil science or environmental soil science. The first prepare students to become advisor or consultant mostly with large corporations, companies and government agencies, while the later prepare students to have prosperous career in environmental positions to deal with quality of soil and water, soil relation to water, assessment of soil properties during construction, recreational facilities and waste disposal.

Interested in Other Branches of Agriculture Sciences. Read More Here

Other Career opportunities

Soil scientist works both on desk and in fields. However, a soil scientist without frequent field visits cannot becomes a perfect scientist. They have to visit recurrently to the farm lands, mountains and uneven terrains with spades and shovels in hands to collect soil sample. Another important thing is that, soil scientists have to work often with non-soil science professionals. So they have to be open minded by attitude to accept ideas.

On global scale, the demand of soil scientists is increasing day by day due to land degradation by erosion, desertification and urbanization. Both public and private options are open for a soil scientist thus opening vide avenues of career in soil science for the scientists. Below is a list showing various career options for a soil scientist.

Research jobs in government and private labs
Teaching jobs at undergraduate and graduate level in colleges and universities
Jobs in pesticide, weedicide and herbicide companies
Wetland experts
Soil conservationist
Marketing manager for an agricultural firm at district level
Soil scientist in mapping and interpretation of soil matters
Landscaping jobs
Agricultural officer
Land planning officer
Crop production specialists
Government and private farm advisor

P.S. This is not a complete list. Comments are welcome below to highlight other job opportunities available for a soil scientist.

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]Rahman, M. A. (2017, September 10). Introduction and Career in Soil Science [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2017/09/10/introduction-and-career-in-soil-science[/box]

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