Energy

While President Obama is expected to focus on challenges in Afghanistan and a hefty new health care bill this week, many in the farm community are growingly concerned about the future of cap-and-trade legislation, and its implications for farmers. According to University of Illinois agricultural economist and environmental policy guru Madhu Khanna, there are both positive and negative consequences for American farmers in a climate bill that would define the nation’s first-ever mandatory limit on heat-trapping gases, in an effort to slow-down global warming effects.

So, I’ve found the perfect agriculture career opportunity - Now what do I do? The answer to the question seems obvious. Step one. Make sure my resume is up to date. Step two. Draft a cover letter. Step three. Submit the application. Step four. Wait, and hope for the best. If you are like most job seekers, this is the way you go about applying for new jobs. But, if you are looking to make a step out from the crowd - you might try a few other tricks!

Once you’ve located what you think to be the perfect opportunity - do some brainstorming about who you know that might have a connection to the company. Is there someone in your personal network that can make a call on your behalf? This is one tried and true tactic that will help you get the interview.

     We have in the US energy policy regarding ethanol an illustration of the classic problem in economics which I like to call "too many balls in the air".  When it comes to economic thinking and analysis, individuals or groups with "skin in the game" tend to focus tightly on the single variable they want to improve (like the corn price in the case of ethanol) and fail to understand that markets are complex interactions of sometimes hundreds of linked transactions and markets all of which can and usually are affected by extra-market interventions to move the target variable.  There are economic models that can and do attempt to account for all of these impacts simulataneously and track the movement to a new equilibrium in all affected markets but they can be large and clumsy and not very good at tracking the short term movements to new long term equilibria.

Nope, I don’t mean that someone has physically placed a hot iron in a conspicuous place in order to lay claim. What I do mean is that you may very well have branded yourself regarding your career choices. Generations of managers from just about any industry (especially agriculture) have pigeon holed - and been pigeon holed because of degree, or experience of their career early on. Today, I’ll take a break from the normal conversation of career options - and talk about something much more important. Developing your personal brand.

Recently, many people have been asking my advice on where the greatest opportunity for jobs in the agriculture industry is. Over the next several weeks, I will attempt to break down several areas of the industry that are working hard to recruit top talent. In this economy, you might find it hard to believe that certain sectors of the industry are in high need, but believe it or not, its true. As we face many baby-boomers coming up for retirement, almost all sectors of agriculture will experience a shortage of well qualified workers. This week we’ll take a snap shot of the Cooperative system - where job openings seem to abound these days, and we’ll examine why.

     Worldwide demand for natural resouces, value-added food items and consumer goods is down sharply as a dramatic slowdown of the world's largest economies continues.  The contraction phase of this worldwide recession is still underway at the beginning of 2009 and will likely continue well into at least the first quarter. 

     One of the reasons it is hard to predict when the recession will bottom out is that there are most likely still "land-mines" of hidden corruption yet to be exposed and absorbed as losses by the remaining productive sectors.  These losses occur in business processes and supply chains that are linked, so that a kind of domino effect or snowballing contraction must take place before the full impact of each phase of the slowdown is fully realized.  This takes time and tends to come in waves, as tipping points are finally breeched.