In recent years the job market has been tough, making it a surprise when any major has a 100 percent placement rate after graduation. However, agriculture business majors have accomplished just that.

In 2012, 55 of the 57 agriculture business program graduates at Iowa State found jobs while the remaining two graduates went on to pursue higher education. These students have been studying to work with the agriculture community from a business angle, such as working with finance or public relations.

Ron Deiter, professor of agricultural economics, said 15 percent of graduates who got jobs went back to work on a farm, 25 percent went into sales, 15 percent went to management, and the rest were scattered uniformly across a number of areas such as marketing and insurance.

The students continuing onto graduate school usually study law or economics. Selling and trading seed is a huge part of the sales sector that so many students go into. Seed-related business is a strong section of the agriculture industry. Pioneer and Monsanto, two huge seed companies, are the top two employers of graduates from Iowa State in this field.

Though the numbers for job placement in agriculture business are typically high, the statistics for this past year were remarkable. Mike Gaul, director of career placement in the College of Agriculture, attributes it to the increased need for food in the ever-growing world.

“Whether we’re in a recession or not, we still have to eat, and the demand for food will always still be there,” Gaul said. “Because of this, the students that get in are going to have the chance to climb the corporate ladder a lot more quickly than any other generation out there. All of that out there is just going to really ignite the need for students in this field.”

Will this trend continue?

Gaul and Deiter both think it will.

“It can’t get any better than 100 percent,” Deiter said. “I predict that it will stay about the same, maybe not as good as this past year but the job market is still very strong so most grads will get job placement. We had a really strong, stellar class last year, and I hope our future classes turn out the same.”

It certainly helps that agriculture business is central to developing food to feed our world.

“I think the beauty of the whole thing is that you can take a lot of different paths,” Gaul said. “You have a lot of options. It’s a hot major.”