Global mobility for talented agribusiness professionals

According to Tracy Dawson (Kestria South Africa), there is plenty of pressure on the agricultural sector, and where there are challenges, there is demand for leaders who can manage an extensive dashboard that goes well beyond the farm. Some of these challenges facing the sector are evolving - tightening regulation in response to climate change and nitrogen overload, and ongoing surges and dips in energy and water cost and availability. Some are ongoing and historical - sustainability, diversification, land rights, supply chain, new trade agreements, pest and disease control and monitoring (on a global scale), and the measurement and reporting load involved. The Southern African commercial farming sector is incredibly diverse because of the wealth of biomes across the region, and talent from the region is often highly mobile – and breaking new ground, literally and figuratively.

The river of international talent flows into Asia

In contrast with the US, Monicca Yan (Kestria China & Singapore) shared it is easy to attract talent into the Agriculture sector as talents from other industries are open to join the sector as it is deemed to be stable and growing as well as contributing to nation building for food sustainability. Talent in the R&D and technical function within the agriculture sector remains tight as local government in Singapore and China has been encouraging investment into R&D to innovate food and farming practices to enhance the stability of supply. 

‘Agriculture and Agri-Science sector has experienced healthy growth over the last three years, hiring has been healthy and we do expect this trend to continue into the new year,’ states Monicca Yan.

According to Patrick Westerburger (Kestria Netherlands), the world's best agricultural universities, such as UC Davies and Wageningen, attract talent from all over the world. Graduates often continue to work in the region, but in fact, they can reach companies anywhere that deal with the big issue: how to feed the growing world population in a sustainable way. The shortage of agricultural experts, from C-level to specialists, will increase in the coming years.

'Fortunately, our customers see that e-learning and IoT, boosted during the Covid-19 period, will change the business models completely and have a positive effect on business operations. In a relatively short period of time, the agricultural sector has transformed from traditionally led companies to state-of-the-art enterprises. That requires different leadership, out-of-the-box thinkers, and leaders who can shape that change. With the growing world population, the agricultural sector will continue to grow strongly on all continents in the coming years. Plenty of work to be done for international talent who are able to develop and roll out a digital future vision for this incredibly fascinating sector,’ says Patrick Westerburger.