active employment policies and trends

1. 1
The new emerging agricultural professions.
The role of science in agriculture1
Agriculture is the set of techniques and knowledge to cultivate the land. So, talking about
agriculture is talking about science and technology. The objective of our species is to exploit the
resources of the earth as best as possible, in order to extract better food and other resources
that we use in increasingly complex value chains.
In the last century, productivity has been increased in the crop and pesticides and fertilizers
have been improved. New advances in genetics promise to revolutionize the sector, but we still
face incredible challenges with no short-term solution.
We are in crisis. Soon there will be food for everyone
One third of our planet's land is used for agriculture. It is a lot, but it must also be taken into
account that approximately 50% of the earth's land mass (desert, tundra, mountains and
glaciers) is unusable.
As if that were not enough, the needs of agriculture are not limited to the land. More than two
thirds of the world's fresh water is used in agriculture. And to finish the job, if the above were not
enough, half of the world's harvest is lost by insects or deterioration.
For these reasons many initiatives are taking place to improve agriculture thanks to technology
bringing them together and creating new emerging job opportunities.
One of the major reasons why modern science needs to be put into practice is because it is not
going to be possible to feed the planet's population of 7.5 billion people with outdated farming
methods.
New technologies and improvements
You need the best minds and the best technologies turned to agriculture in the coming decades.
It is a global challenge that will soon be one of the biggest that humanity has faced.
The UN knows that the first to suffer this technological "gap" are the poorest. Therefore, in its
Sustainable Development Goals for the year 2030, several of the 17 High Level Objectives are
related to agriculture.
1 The paper has been prepared by Mr. Alberto Cerdá Micó,CESIM expert on activeemployment policies for the
study visitto Spain for a delegation of 5 high level officialsfromthe Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of
Mongolia duringthe week 19 to 23 March 2017

2. 2
Farmer: a job for the future
The challenges of agriculture need substantial technical improvements that will need engineers,
biologists, geologists, physicists, economists, mathematicians ...
The climate of our planet is changing and agricultural technologies will have to adapt to new
seasonal and meteorological conditions, including possible droughts, floods and sudden
changes in temperature. We need to anticipate the new climate, with new prediction models.
Another important problem is soil depletion. A solution can be found through aerobic restoration,
which is a technology to saturate the soil with aerobic bacteria. We need geologists and
biologists working together on this point.
In addition, the diversity of crops is decreasing: every year there are fewer new species of crops
and those already existing are becoming extinct. This implies a need for deep research in
artificial selection. Genetic modification technologies allow the breeding of new species with
predetermined properties. New biotechnology students may well invest their efforts in these
lines of research.
In the not too distant future, robots and automated systems will help people in the management
of farms and agricultural enterprises. Several sensors will communicate accurate information
about weather conditions in the crop area, soil moisture and plant and animal conditions.
Unmanned agricultural aircraft will monitor the fields from above, while careful robotic collectors

3. 3
will relieve people of strenuous labor, accelerating the harvesting process. The so-called
"farmbots" are already being used and, according to the estimates of the world experts, will be
used en masse before 2020. Engineers specialized in robotics, aeronautics, telecommunication,
instrumentation, automation and systems, will be able to help the world to improve the technical
productivity of the harvest process. Of course, agricultural engineers will be required and the
key players.
With the help of sensors on the ground and aerial images, we can develop "precision
agriculture". This is based on the fact that a field is heterogeneous, so that maximum
performance can be obtained with different actions and treatments in each place of the crop. At
the same time, agriculture will no longer be a purely rural area, since cities will start to build
vertical farms, that is, high-tech agricultural complexes on roofs and buildings.
Use of drons for agriculture
A drone is an incredibly effective tool for cultivation. With a very low cost, weight and
maintenance, you can plant millions of seeds in large areas. In addition, they can be automated
and complemented with satellite images that identify where and when to plant.
Drones-based agriculture, whether autonomous or not, will revolutionize agriculture, mainly in
Asia and Africa. We call this type of agriculture "Precision Agriculture", by mapping the land and
applying agricultural actions only where it is needed.

4. 4
The new agricultural professions
Some of the new professions in the sector could be:
AGRICULTURAL ECONOMIST
Highly qualified specialist that guarantees the competitive performance of the products and the
profitable operation of the agricultural companies, adjusting the operations of a company to the
needs and requirements of the market. Responsible for managing the economic risks of a
company. While a few schools provide specialty training, demand for it still exceeds supply in
the labor market.
AGRICULTURAL ECOLOGIST
Expert in the elimination of waste, that is, in the development of the principles of agricultural
waste disposal and soil restoration.
OPERATOR OF AUTOMATED AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY
Specialist in the management of automated machinery on a farm: sensor systems, drones and
farmbots.

5. 5
URBAN FARMER
Specialist in the conditioning and maintenance of agroindustrial facilities in skyscrapers and
roofs of large cities. Vertical farms are sustainable and environmentally friendly structures that
allow farming and livestock within the city limits. They are also on the agenda of the near future.
The first vertical commercial farm was built in Singapore in 2012. Skyscraper farms are now
planned in South Korea, China, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, France and other
countries.
GMOs FARMER
Specialist in Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in agriculture; dedicated to the
implementation of biotechnological achievements and the creation of products with pre-
established properties. Despite the public debate on the subject, most scientists believe that
GMOs are harmless, so the use of GMOs continues to grow: in 2013, more than 11% of the
world's cultivated land was planted with crops genetically modified, while 91% of soybeans,
88% of cotton and 85% of corn in the United States are genetically modified. In Russia,
genetically modified seeds are subject to registration from July 1, 2014.
AGRICULTURE ENGINEER AND EXPERT IN AGRICULTURAL COMPUTERS

6. 6
Specialist highly qualified in the implementation of new technologies, dedicated to the
computerization and automation of agricultural facilities.
Innovation and new professional profiles in the agricultural sector, SEPE Report 2017,
Spain
According to the Observatory of Occupations of the Spanish Public Employment Service
(SEPE, August 2017) qualified work in agricultural activities has increased by 23.33%, ranking
as the 4th occupation that grows the most in Spain
With the end of summer contracts, unemployment increased by 46,400 in August 2017, bringing
the total number of unemployed in Spain to a total of 3,382,324 persons. If we analyze the
information by sector, it should be noted that Agriculture shows a decrease of 7,044 persons in
the number of unemployed.
According to the Observatory of Occupations of the Spanish Public Employment Service of
August 2017, among the 15 occupations with the highest positive year-on-year variation of
contracts are the categories of 'Skilled workers in agricultural activities' and 'Agricultural
laborers'. In the first group , an annual increase of 23.35% has been produced and many of the
new created are stable long term. For the ordinary “laborers” the growth was up to 10.56%.

7. 7
Qualified profiles in the agricultural sector
The advance of new technologies and their application to agrarian and productive processes
are contributing greatly to the creation of new professional profiles in the sector, what translates
into the increase in the annual rate of hiring qualified profiles.
It has been noted as well that the appearance of new university degrees, specialized in areas of
the agricultural sector, beyond the traditional industrial, chemical and agrarian engineering, will
favor that this tendency can be consolidated as the sector innovates and is transformed.
Degrees such as “Food Science and Technology” and “Innovation of Processes and Food
Products”, along with specialized Master's degrees in “Food Safety”, among others, are some of
the new university careers that have strong projection of the future.
Among the newly created jobs we find a wide variety. One of the most innovative is that of
“drone pilots” specialized in the supervision of harvesting, spraying and spraying pesticides.
The report also emphasize the new technical profiles arising, where engineers of alimentary
processes have the challenge to develop new products, containers and alimentary processes to
guarantee higher levels of quality, hygiene and respect to the environment.
The examples are the new “managers of quality, safety and food risks”; “specialists in predictive
models” that use environmental big data to implement and promote a sustainable agriculture,
and even get support from computers to create specific agricultural applications for a more
efficient management of such processes. Therefore the report finds in the agricultural sector the
coexistence of jobs that do not require high qualification with others that do need it, but the latter
being the current trend and the engine of change that is perceived in the new agriculture
profiles.
The reason for this trend in agriculture is due to the professionalization and digitalization of the
sector that is transforming the processes and activities while is generating highly specialized
and innovative positions that did not exist just a few years ago.