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Manufacturing and Production | Food / Agricultural Technician

Food / Agricultural Technician

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

A Food or Agricultural Technician assists agricultural and food scientists with research and testing related to safety and quality control. May focus on testing and lab analysis for animal crops and animal feed, or focus on testing and lab analysis for food, food crops, processed food, food additives and food containers.

Job Outlook

There were 548 Food / Agricultural Technician job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 20518 in the United States.

In combination with other careers in the Food / Agricultural Technician industry, which includes the Food / Agricultural Technician career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:

Salary

Many new Food / Agricultural Technician jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.

National

The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $47,981.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $46,905.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Food / Agricultural Technician postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $36,376.

Education and Experience

Posted Food / Agricultural Technician jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.

Education LevelPercentage
Associate's Degree10.12%
Bachelor's Degree22.85%
Master's Degree6.84%
Doctoral Degree2.66%
Other36.51%

Posted Food / Agricultural Technician jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Years of ExperiencePercentage
0 to 2 years60.94%
3 to 5 years32.5%
6 to 8 years3.5%
9+ years3.06%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Food / Agricultural Technician positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.

Baseline Skills

A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.

  • Communication (28.87%)
  • Operations (20.46%)
  • Management (19.74%)
  • Customer Service (19.4%)
  • Sales (16.18%)
  • Lifting Ability (12.5%)
  • Research (11.48%)
  • Sanitation (11.09%)
  • Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (10.11%)
  • Detail Oriented (9.85%)

Defining Skills

A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.

  • Agronomy (20.07%)
  • Crop Production (12.49%)
  • Agriculture (34.41%)

Necessary Skills

A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.

  • Food Services (14.56%)
  • Marketing (7.35%)
  • Food Safety And Sanitation (19.96%)
  • Irrigation (Landscaping And Agriculture) (10.97%)
  • Soil Science (8.92%)
  • Good Manufacturing Practices (8.86%)
  • Fertilizers (19.04%)
  • Machinery (8%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

  • Plant Science (5.83%)
  • Precision Agriculture (4.09%)
  • Soil Sampling (3.96%)

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed.

  • Soil Sampling (11.95%)
  • Agronomy (60.51%)
  • Precision Agriculture (12.33%)
  • Crop Production (37.67%)

Alternative Job Titles

Sometimes employers post jobs with Food / Agricultural Technician skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:

  • Custom Applicator
  • Food Service Technician
  • Sales Agronomist
  • Agricultural Technician
  • Applicator
  • Horticulture Technician
  • Agronomist
  • Agricultural Specialist
  • Seed Technician
  • Food Safety Quality Assurance Technician

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.

Common Employers

Here are the employers that have posted the most Food / Agricultural Technician jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

  • GPAC (987)
  • Nutrien (913)
  • Growmark (514)
  • Wilbur-Ellis (402)
  • Actalent (289)
  • Helena Agri Enterprises (260)
  • Natural Resources Conservation Service (220)
  • Bayer (197)
  • PAM Health (173)
  • Mercy Health (160)

North Carolina

  • North Carolina State University (60)
  • State of North Carolina (25)
  • Procter & Gamble (18)
  • GPAC (15)
  • Southern States Cooperative (14)
  • Cone Health (11)
  • Appalachian State University (11)
  • North Carolina A&T State University (10)
  • Southern States (10)
  • Nutrien (9)

NC State Programs Relevant to this Career

If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!

All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.