Ireland’s food, drink and horticulture industry employs over 150,000 people and accounts for around 9 per cent of total direct employment. The value of Irish food, drink and horticulture exported in 2004 exceeded €7.1 billion.

Agriculture

Agriculture refers to activities in agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing. In the Republic of Ireland, farmers make up almost 7 per cent of the workforce and the agri-food sector accounts for almost 10 per cent of employment.

In traditional farming self employment is common. However, there are a host of careers in agricultural-related services and businesses. These include:

• animal and plant research
  
• agribusiness management and sales
  
• commodity broking
  
• agricultural journalists
  
• agriscience research
  
• parks, recreation and tourism
  
• wildlife
  
• lecturing.

Aquaculture

Aquaculture is the science, art and business of cultivating marine or fresh water fish under controlled conditions.

The seafood industry in Ireland employs over 15,000 people and in 2005 the retail sales of seafood were valued at €185 million with Irish seafood exports valued at €354 million.

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants with some sort of intervention in the rearing process to enhance production, such as regular stocking, feeding or protection from predators. Farming also implies individual or corporate ownership of the stock being cultivated.

There are opportunities for employment in areas such as government, European policy, water quality monitoring, marine biology, disease monitoring, farming, feed companies (research, sales, marketing), environmental monitoring, aquaria, and fisheries.

Careers in aquaculture include:

Aquaculture farmers

responsible for the maintenance of equipments and cages, transporting stock to new tanks, checking stock growth for harvesting, maintaining water quality, and managing the harvesting, grading and packaging of fish and other aquatic stock.

Aquaculture technicians

involved with breeding marine organisms, identifying and preventing common diseases, investigating nutrition, monitoring water quality, maintaining live cultures, recording breeding, and production and treatment programmes.

Research technicians

assist in aquaculture research projects. This may include collecting and harvesting, spawning, hatching, feeding and rearing fish and other aquatic organisms, maintaining an efficient operation of research aquaculture systems, and monitoring water quality and fish health.

Horticulture

Horticulture is the science and technology of plant cultivation.

The Irish horticultural industry has a farm gate value of €400 million and employs over 10,000 people. There are two distinct areas within horticulture: amenity and commercial.

Amenity horticulture

This includes landscape design along with constructing and maintaining parks, public areas, sports grounds, recreation facilities and roadsides.

Interior landscaping is a specialism within amenity horticulture which is concerned with the design, installation, and maintenance of plantings in shopping centres, office buildings, hotels, residences, etc.

Roles within amenity horticulture include:

• landscapers
  
• professional gardeners
  
• groundspersons
  
• greenkeepers.

Typical employers include local authorities, botanic gardens, golf clubs, leisure facilities, theme parks etc. Self employment is also a popular choice.

Commercial horticulture

This involves growing crops for sale. Crops include fruit and vegetables, nursery stock and bedding plants. Typical employers include organisations that grow or supply produce, production nurseries, and food companies that process and package fresh produce. In Northern Ireland, commercial horticulture employs around 5,000 people.

Food science

Food science is concerned with the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of food along the production chain.

There are opportunities for graduates within food processing companies, food ingredient suppliers, food quality assurance and analytical labs, and government departments.

Careers in food science include:

Product development managers

responsible for the development of new products from concept to launch, including sample development, trial runs, internal research and conducting taste panel sessions.

Quality control

responsible for implementing, updating and amending quality related documentation; creating, updating and controlling product specifications; supervising warehouse and production cleaning; and controlling recipes, adjustments and sample production.

Food technologists

artwork approval from a technical perspective; organising nutritional analysis; organising taste panels; supporting research and development.

Written by Caroline Kennedy, Careers & Opportunities Officer, National College of Ireland.