But Widener wants to start a science, technology, engineering and math school in Springfield that would provide education dedicated to the field.
And not only are those jobs out there, they are better paying than many fields, with an average salary of $68,000 in the field of bioscience.
“They typically make about $2,600 more than the average private sector job,” he said.
The school would be called the Global Impact STEM Academy, and although it is proposed to be based in Clark County, it would serve students from 51 school districts, said Widener, who is working on the project with Springfield City School District Superintendent David Estrop.
It would be the only such school in Ohio and one of only five in the country.
The decline of agriculture education might be explained by a perception that it’s a “dead-end” field and misconceptions about job opportunities.
“It’s well beyond what most people think of as agriculture,” said Estrop. “They think about the men and women in the tractors doing the producing, but it’s the other part. It’s the men and women in the lab coats.”
In the U.S. North Central Region, 88,000 of these companies employ 2.4 million people, Widener said. One million Ohioans are employed in the agricultural bioscience field with an annual economic impact of more than $100 million.
“The thing to remember is that agriculture is so broad,” said Linda Martin, associate dean and director of the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Science at Ohio State University. “The whole discipline of agriculture, natural resources and environmental sciences is much broader than it used to be.”
The college’s agricultural students go on to work in agricultural engineering, energy production, research, food science, business, marketing, sales, communications, horticulture, and livestock and crop productions, among other subjects.
The school’s students have done well after graduating in recent years.
“We’ve averaged that about 92-93 percent of our graduates have jobs within six months of graduation and that’s really great with this tough economy,” Martin said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has made promising projections for the field, Martin said.
“They’re predicting that, by 2012, the number of agricultural jobs will continue to grow, and that through 2012, the number of jobs will exceed the number of students graduating in the field,” she said.
Providing an opportunity for students to get in the field at an early age with the STEM schools would give local students a head start to getting those jobs, said Estrop.
“We don’t want to turn our students loose with only a diploma and they don’t have the skills or knowledge they need,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0373 or Megan.Gildow@coxinc.com.
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