Central Minnesota is a manufacturing stronghold, with several global manufacturing firms operating there.
The region is especially well known for its expertise in food processing, printing, furniture manufacturing, appliances, machinery and heavy equipment manufacturing.
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4/9/2019 2:00:00 PM
Luke Greiner
Central Minnesota’s agriculture industry is incredibly important, providing unique job opportunities while supporting a variety of other industries such as manufacturing, finance, and transportation. At an occupational level, the region boasts 32 unique jobs in the agriculture, food, and natural resources career field with 8,380 jobs, excluding self-employment (primarily family farms).
Within the broad career field, Central Minnesota has seven career pathways in which to explore employment opportunities. Figure 1 shows how employment varies within each career pathway. Larger numbers of jobs means more job openings and frequent opportunities to gain employment as current workers move into other occupations or exit the labor force. To that end, one of the largest opportunities is becoming a self-employed farmer. The region is currently home to 14,786 farms according to the most recent data. While roughly half of farmers do something else as their primary occupation, farming is still the most common occupation in the agriculture, food, and natural resources career field in Central Minnesota. Like other industries, self-employment comes with larger risks and can be difficult to obtain success.
Aside from becoming a self-employed farmer, the most common employment opportunities are in the food products and processing systems pathway. Roughly 3,300 jobs in this pathway are meat cutters and trimmers or slaughterers and meat packers, a nod to the region’s robust food manufacturing base.
This demonstrates that excellent paying jobs exist in the agriculture, food and natural resource career field for people at every education level. Some of the highest paying occupations are listed in Table 1, ranging from soil scientists to farm equipment mechanics.
For those looking to work in the agriculture, food, and natural resources career field, consider how skills, natural abilities, and passion can narrow down an occupation to pursue. To explore the agriculture, food, and natural resource career field, use this link to navigate the various career pathways.
Contact Luke Greiner at 320-308-5378.
