A recent survey sent to food and agriculture sector businesses about their hiring and talent pool challenges is part of an AgriNovus Indiana strategy. AgriNovus Indiana President and CEO Mitch Frazier says they have a commitment to the success of the Indiana agbiosciences economy.
“And key to that is understanding and ensuring we have the workforce here in Indiana to meet those demands,” he explained. “So understanding the challenges our agbiosciences businesses have in hiring gives us a really terrific view into what programs we need to create at AgriNovus and across the state to make sure we’re filling that pipeline so our Hoosier agbioscience businesses can grow here.”
He tells HAT they cast a wide net across the industry to learn from them “who they’re hiring, who are some of those folks that they traditionally hire at a fast rate and where are some of those challenges they have in hiring. What gaps do that have? Where are they finding obstacles in hiring the folks they need to fuel their business growth? We will use that data then to shape programs all the way back to high school.”
Frazier says a lot of career decisions are taking shape in high school, so it’s important to be a part of that curriculum.
“We need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to create this educational environment where young people can understand that it’s not just plant science or just agriculture. It’s data science. It’s analytics. It’s engineering and it’s economics.”
And does AgriNovus have what it takes to make an impact in Hoosier high schools? Frazier says absolutely.
“We have an entire team dedicated to talent development at AgriNovus Indiana, and I am confident we have the relationships as well, not just with our team, but across the state with state leaders as well as education leaders at school districts all across the state to make sure the data we have shapes programs they operate, and together we can link arms and fuel agbioscience growth here in Indiana.”
Agbioscience growth is one of the keys to being able to feed a growing population with less resources, preserving the planet in the process.
Businesses who have the survey are asked to return it by the deadline a week from now, Friday, July 24, 2020. If you are in the industry and would like to complete the survey, request it by contacting AgriNovus Indiana.