Ag-related jobs foundational to local economy

Workers whose employment is tied to ag make up 1/5 of NE’s total workforce 

With more than 20 percent of total employment in Nebraska being tied to the agricultural economy in some way, the ag workforce accounts for a huge part of the state’s 1.14 million-strong employment base. 
According to the state Department of Labor, in 2022 72,591 Nebraska workers were directly involved with some aspect of growing and producing crops and livestock. Those are the agricultural technicians, the soil, plant and animal scientists, pesticide handlers, sprayers and applicators, the buyers and purchasing agents, the farm laborers and, of course, the farmers and ranchers themselves. Combined, they made up 6.35 percent of the state’s total workforce. 
With those figures in mind, the editorial staff at the News-Register decided this year to highlight in our annual workforce edition the many local workers whose jobs revolve around the ag industry, which is so vital to our local economy. We wanted to not only highlight the important contributions of those who work in these various sectors, but to put a human face on those job titles and descriptions. Therefore, what’s featured in this week’s edition are interviews with some of your neighbors who are the ag mechanics, agronomists, seed representatives, corporate executives and ag teachers, as well as the women in agriculture and the young people who make up its future workforce. 
In addition to those who are the most hands-on with agriculture, there are the thousands of truck drivers, food processing workers, ag salespersons and mechanics, ag support technicians and dozens of other jobs that are tied to the ag economy and make up that one-fifth of the total workforce. 
For example, at a recent career planning exercise for Aurora High School freshmen put on by UNL Extension, the career path for “Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources” listed a total of 82 different jobs related to the industry, including everything from animal breeders to nursery and greenhouse workers and managers to veterinarians, zoologists and wildlife biologists. 
Further evidence of the importance of agriculture to the state’s labor force is to be found in a study conducted by UNL researchers in 2017, which showed that Agriculture accounted for 19.9 percent of all income earned by the Nebraska workforce that year. The study also found that 321,000 workers (23.3 percent of the state’s workforce) were employed in a position connected to Nebraska’s ag industry.
In addition, the 2023 USDA/NASS State Agriculture Overview for Nebraska showed that agriculture contributed more than 10.6 percent of total state GDP in 2022. And another report stated that Nebraska contributes more than 5 percent to the entire nation’s agricultural sector, whether calculated in value of ag production, net value added, or net farm income.
Pick up this week’s print or e-edition of the Aurora News-Register to meet some of the people who work every day to contribute in some way to Hamilton County’s all-important ag economy.