Ag Help Wanted

Mark Moore, Contributor

Stephanie Davis is on the front lines of the agricultural employment battle. As human resources business partner for Nexus Cooperative, she and her team are challenged to identify, recruit and secure employees for the 31 Nexus Cooperative sites located throughout northeast Iowa and southern Minnesota. With 215 full-time team members, Nexus provides services in four divisions, including grain, agronomy, feed and energy.

The biggest struggle? Getting candidates through the door. "Our main challenge in finding employees is identifying the candidate that is a good fit for our team and has an understanding of the work environment that agriculture entails," Davis says. "And, to be honest, they must also be comfortable living in a rural setting."

She explains that in the past, these sales and management roles may have been filled by sons or daughters of farmers in the area. But, the shrinking size of family units has significantly reduced that employee pool, meaning agricultural services industries are having to adjust their sites to identify future employees.

"We visit high schools within our cooperative's footprint, attending career fairs and talking with FFA or 4-H members to tell them the career options we provide," Davis says. "And, we've even started thinking outside the box."

Davis and her team have turned to Facebook as one of their tools to scout out recruits. "We go to the towns surrounding our locations and will put our job openings on those towns' community pages. Our hope is we might interest someone looking for employment who already lives in the community," Davis says. "It's a matter of getting in front of as many people as possible to find the right fit for our cooperative."

Look at any message board or online chat, or bring up finding an employee at any rural coffee shop, and you'll get the same response: Good help is hard to find. And, while finding that summer help for general labor might be difficult, the market to find skilled employees in the agricultural services sector is difficult on a scale magnified several times over.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while overall employment of agricultural workers is projected to decline 2% from 2023 to 2033, about 116,400 openings for agricultural workers are projected each year, on average, over the decade. All those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to other occupations or exit the labor force, including retiring.

"Employee retention, compensation, competing for and recruiting talent continue to be top challenges faced by employers in the ag sector," says Bonnie Johnson, marketing and communications manager with AgCareers. AgCareers works with employers and employees to find specific talent for the agricultural industry. In the company's 2025 Agriculture & Food HR Review, a survey of employers in the U.S. agricultural industry, more than 65% of agricultural and food employers across the United States say they have had trouble finding candidates with the necessary skills needed by employers.

Educational opportunities in agriculture go well beyond the basics. Career studies include animal science, plant and soil science, farm management, food science, agronomy and agribusiness management. The challenge is getting these recent graduates connected with the companies that need them and placing the employees in locations where they are in demand.

"Employers are putting a much higher priority on employee retention and training because of the difficulty in recruiting new talent to their company," Johnson says.

The demand for support positions -- seed sales, agronomist, consultant, applicator, mechanic, to name a few -- is great. And, the talent pool is shallow.

Experts who work the front lines -- securing the right employees and matching them with the right employer -- share some of their experiences and reasons why there is a shortage, and also ways employers are working to attract that next generation to the areas these companies support.

THE WORKFORCE SHORTAGE

It's a numbers game. "One of the biggest factors isn't about education, skill set or geography, it's just simple math," says Mark Waschek, president of Ag 1 Source, which provides agricultural recruitment and employment services for the agricultural industry. Each day, approximately 10,000 people in the U.S. turn 65 years of age, according to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). "And, retirement has become more attractive, so they leave the workforce and create opportunities for people to take their place," he says. The problem is there's not enough talent available to fill the void.

"There are great organizations like FFA and 4-H who are working to get people from nontraditional backgrounds interested in production agriculture, but most people who go into production agriculture roles have been influenced by where they grew up and who they grew up with," Waschek explains. "With fewer people working at the farm gate every year, there are fewer people who come from these operations."

He also sees young people from an ag background going into other roles within agriculture that don't involve boots-on-the-ground work at the farm gate.

"Life sciences have seen a bump in the past few years, but the production-ag-related studies have been declining," Waschek says. "These roles are important, but they don't help fill the role of an applicator or seed salesperson."

The bottom line: A lot of people are leaving the ag industry every day, "and we do not have the capacity to fill it back up," he adds.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Sales roles, especially in agriculture, often mean long hours and time away from home. Ask any seed salesperson in rural South Dakota traveling to a customer function in the dead of winter two hours away from home. Or, the applicator working to fulfill orders at the height of planting.

While today's employees understand that these roles do require long hours, more and more prioritize flexibility and work-life balance over long hours, making traditional agricultural work less appealing.

"While I do think it's a good thing that we are becoming more family-focused, it presents a challenge for production agriculture," says Tammy Jensen, president of agriCAREERS Inc., a company that works to match employers and employees in the agricultural industry. "If someone goes away to college, they often see their peers having regular jobs with regular hours. That's not always the case for production agriculture."

Jensen says a clear example occurred when she placed a person in a seed production role, which is the role this person wanted to do. Around the middle of summer, at the height of seed corn production, he wanted to take the weekend off to join friends for a bachelor party. "When you work in seed corn production, unless you have that conversation well in advance, you should know that time is critical to be on the job," she says.

While that person did take the time off, it also meant some serious discussions to ensure how future time off was handled during the detasseling season. "It boiled down to communication and a clear understanding of expectations," Jensen explains.

It also may be a matter of working with the employer to set realistic job expectations considering today's overall environment.

"Employers need to consider work-life balance and flexibility," Jensen says. "Recently, I was working with an employer looking for someone in a livestock management operation. The job description required work every holiday. That's not reasonable today. The employer had not changed the job description in 25 years. He evaluated the job and revised the job description to give more flexibility over holidays. It's critical that some jobs need to be done every day, but employers need to understand that you will have a very difficult time filling these roles long term unless you add some flexibility."

A territory job in the Midwest that Jensen is working to help fill expects the employee to be on the road overnight three to four nights a week. "That's a big challenge," she says. "It's not necessarily a bad thing that family is taking a priority, but that makes it hard to find someone willing to be away that many days a week."

RURAL LIVING CHALLENGES

While many revel in the rural lifestyle, being young and single in a small town may not be the most attractive -- especially if you've recently graduated from college and have gotten a taste of urban life.

Getting younger employees to move back to rural areas is a daunting task for employers.

"One of the most frequent complaints of our employers is the challenge of rural recruitment," Johnson says. "They ask how they recruit in rural areas or bring employees back to rural areas."

She says more employers are finding that identifying young talent earlier in their company footprint can help. "We've seen with rural recruitment that working with young people, even in early high school, can provide information on job opportunities that are local and will keep those people in the area."

There's even been an increase in employees looking for rural employment opportunities that provide additional flexibility, including the option to work from home. "That's not always possible in some roles," Johnson says. "But, employers are looking at positions they need to fill and identifying ways they can adjust the role to accommodate these new employees."

Another challenge experts see is the dual income.

"Later generations are more likely to have dual incomes or careers," says Jordan Morris, executive consultant with Morris Bixby Group. "It can be very difficult to find jobs for two in a small town. It often means commuting or moving closer to a larger population center."

From a mental health and employee-retention challenge, meeting the needs of younger employees is difficult. "If you are 23 years old and want to launch your career, I don't care how passionate you are about helping growers in a rural setting, you won't last too long, physically or mentally, in a situation where you have nothing to do on a Friday or Saturday night, especially if your coworkers are older and have family obligations," Waschek says. "It's tough to do when there is absolutely nothing for an employee outside of work in those markets, because everything in those small towns is so family focused."

TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS

The explosion in technology-related products and services in the agriculture industry may also be ferreting away potential employees from the traditional ag support roles.

"There are a tremendous number of startups in the precision agriculture technology space, and those companies need employees," Morris says. And, a good portion of those employees may have previously filled sales or agronomy roles. "These companies have a lot of money, can offer a position in the agricultural industry without some of the stress and travel, and have the 'cool' factor that make the jobs enticing to a younger employee. Employees who want to work with producers have additional opportunities in emerging tech that may not always require long hours and travel."

COMPENSATION AND CULTURE

Employee onboarding is critical for long-term success. "There have been studies that the average person in America, not necessarily agriculture, starts thinking about their next career move 14 days into their first job. And the reason is most companies have two weeks of onboarding, and then you're on your own," Waschek says. "It's not that people are going to leave their company that year, but they've already made the determination if this is a long-term fit."

According to AgCareers, nearly half of the companies surveyed provided salary increases to employees in excess of 3.6%, and remuneration was used to retain and motivate employees in 2024, including higher salaries, salary increases and incentive/bonus programs.

"I have an employer who is looking for an agronomy salesperson and can't find someone because they are more than an hour away from a Walmart," Jensen says. "That's a tough situation, especially if someone is not from the area. There may be a need for the employers to add additional compensation to make up for the lack of amenities in the local area. And, maybe even add Amazon Prime to their compensation."

Morris says compensation is high on the list for employees. "But, often, they may be making the same amount or even a little less, and back out if they discover there is a significant travel requirement," he says.

NO EASY FIX

There's a reason why some of the fastest-growing companies in agriculture are in the automation and drone sectors. "That's a short-term fix," Waschek says. "There's a need for a long-term investment, because these jobs will still be necessary."

The Chinese proverb, "The best time to plant an oak tree is 20 years ago; the second-best time is today," is very appropriate for ag employers looking for long-term employees. "We have to stop holding out for people with the years of experience and think about the potential employees out there within 100 miles that have no experience," Waschek says. "Bringing them onboard and making them a long-term asset will take more than just hiring them. It's an entire system to invest in that tree of the future.

"Compensation is important, but it's also necessary to look at it as a whole," he continues. "You may have to pay more, but it's not because an employee wants to make more. It's because you have to compensate them for what they're giving up. If you are giving up family time, you have to compensate. An employee may be willing to give up some of the flexibility of being 30 minutes from a major town, but you're going to have to reward them for that. It's not just paying somebody more just because they think they need more. You actually have to give yourself the mindset of, what are they giving up to work here?"

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