Career opportunities in agribusiness are proving a reality for the first graduates from the agribusiness degree at Muresk Institute.
There has been an enthusiastic response to the first graduates from the Charles Sturt University Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management run at Muresk in a partnership with Central Regional TAFE.
Those who graduated have jobs as agronomists with Primaries, Kalyx Australia and CSBP.
Others are working as area managers for CSBP, while two are studying for a graduate diploma in education with the aim of teaching agriculture in high schools.
Jodie James (Meckering) is diversifying the family farming enterprise while offering a consulting service to other producers and studying for a masters degree.
Courtney Humphrey (York) is an agronomist with Primaries in York, Nick Hardie (Falcon) is CSBP area manager at Moora and Mitch Hutton (Morawa) is CSBP area manager at Dalwallinu.
Several of the first intake of students are continuing to study part time while working and will graduate in a year or so.
Head of the Central Regional TAFE School of Agribusiness at Muresk, Dr Christine Storer, said: "Our experience has confirmed statistics that show demand for agribusiness graduates exceeds supply.
"Enquiries from employers mean we could have placed far more graduates than we have.
"They are also looking for students to undertake work placements with them.
"One of last year's first years, Jorden Mills (Corrigin), was snapped up by a consultancy in Narrogin during the summer break and was applying skills she gained during the year to plan site maps for clients to use in precision farming.
"The demand for graduates is the reverse of trends in employment in other disciplines made public in a report by the Gratton Institute published in August last year.
Internationally recognized agronomist and director of Rothamsted Research in UK, Professor Achim Dobermann, said recently that crop production was becoming increasingly complex and agronomists would play a key role in translating the latest science and technology on farms where it could do the most good.