DR faces "a serious drought" of agronomists
Diario Libre
Just as the harvest gave it first fruits, Agronomic professionals in the Dominican Republic are nearing the end of their productive lives and they have few possibilities of staying around for another productive term.
The number of agronomists is getting scarce, and those that do exist, in the majority are at an advanced age, a situation that leads agricultural professionals to predict a negative impact in Dominican farm production, if the State does not begin to take action to achieve a generational replacement in the careers tied to farm production.
The country lacks a precise register of the numbers of practicing agronomists. The president of the National Association of Farm Professionals (ANPA), Andres Gomez, estimates that there are a little over 10,000.
In just the ANPA there are registered 7,363 professionals, between engineers and technicians, and Gomez calculates that outside the organization there are another 3,000 more professionals.
But, more than the number, Gomez is worried about the age of those professionals, who average 50 years old. He assured reporters that more than 85% of the professionals affiliated to ANPA are at least half a century old and therefore on the way to retirement.
The Dominican College of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (Codia) has a total of 1.460 of these professionals registered. Their spokesman, Ramon Lora, says that there is a minority that is not registered in the association.
This reality puts the plans of President Danilo Medina in checkmate, since the President seeks "to make the farming sector a motor for development," according to what he said in his inauguration address last August. In order to obtain this goal, the President wants to take this sector from a growth rate of 3.9% which was registered in 2010 to a 12% growth in 2016.
But for the country to achieve this goal, it will have to have new professionals that take over the guidance of farm production, taking into account the demand of the current market, since the agronomists that exist, according to the experts, are no longer capable nor is there the numbers need to achieve this.
From the academic environment, the number of professionals that leave the universities and institutes of higher learning is insufficient. Data from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (MESCYT) show that in six years, between 2006 and 2011, barely 1,837 professionals graduated with degrees from what is known as Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences in the different schools.
This contrasts with degrees in Education that between 2006 and 2011 brought the country a total of 53.165 new professionals.
Agronomics is taught at at least 12 centers of higher education, subdivided in the degree paths for Farm Administration, Agronomics, Food Technology, and Veterinary Sciences. In addition there are polytechnic institutes such as Loyola (in San Cristobal and Dajabon) and the Salesian Institute in La Vega, which offer Agronomy at the secondary level.
This field is among those with the least demand by incoming students at the higher education level.
In 2011, of a total of 435,153 students registered, only 4,570 chose one of these degree paths. Of those registered, 273 are at the technical level, 4,153 are at the degree level and 144 are doing post graduate work.
For this same year, the last one registered and available at the Mescyt, only 56 graduated and of these 24 were strictly speaking in Agronomics, four were veterinarians and the other 28 in areas related to farming but not specified in the ministry's statistics.
Natanael Quezada said that he chose to pursue a career in agronomy because of his love of seeing things grow. "I grew up seeing my father working in agriculture." This young 23 year old is studying in the branch of the Catholic University of the Cibao in Constanza, the most important horticultural area in the country.
The little interest of students for Agronomy is attributed to the poor prestige and pay which the members of the profession receive. In this there is agreement both in the members of ANOA as well as among government officials.
In ANPA, according to Gomez, 90% of the affiliates work for the state, through the Ministry of Agriculture, the Agriculture Bank, the Dominican Agrarian Institute (IAD) and the National Institute for Price Stabilization (Inespre).
In the private sector, and as happens with other careers, the salaries fluctuate between RD$30,000 and RD$50,000 a month, although there may be higher salaries, according to the specifications of the job.
But in the public sector, where the majority works, there are salaries from RD$8,000 a month for an agronomical engineer, as can be shown on the payrolls of some institutions.
For the Agronomist Alcibiades Ventura, the small salaries constitute the first reason why young students do not choose this career path. For example, he talks about his case, with seven children, nearly all of them professionals; none chose to become an agronomist.
"I said to my son: "Why are you going to study?" And he answered me "so you don't have to bother with me. I am going to study computers." I suggested that he study Agronomics and he answered: "Are you nuts?....just look at how you are."
Alcibiades Ventura is an Agricultural Engineer, 53 years old. He graduated 13 years ago but he has 40 years of experience in working the land. He was born in the area of San Luis, when Batey Ozama was still functioning. He learned from the time he was little how to cultivate the soil. His grandfather, who began in those efforts long ago, convinced him to study Agronomics and from him he recalls a phrase that he always repeated: "This is a country that is eminently agricultural-he said-and that is where its development lies."
But things did not come out like Ventura expected. Thirteen years after graduating as an engineer, during which he attended specialized courses, today he works for a salary of RD$16,000 a month paid by the IAD, and it is not enough to live on.
In his judgment, the salary that he earns does not correspond to the work he does, in which-he says-he has had to do "everything." While he does not regret studying the career he chose as a profession, and which he says he loves, it seems unfair that he is so poorly paid.
"I love farming since I was young because it is in my blood....This is my passion, but let's not be masochistic. It is not, just because we are agronomists, that we have to earn the miserable salary that we get," he laments.
Los salaries
In 2011, the director of the Agricultural Bank, Paino Abreu said that all of the farm technicians, 246 in total, had a minimum wage of RD$20,000. In the IAD and the SEA, they admit, nonetheless, that they pay salaries lower than that.
In the IAD there is a payroll of about 2,800 employees and the farm specialists number over 400.
Among these specialists there are salaries of RD$10,000, RD$15,000, RD$24,000 and RD$7,935, according to the payroll of 2012 that the entity has on its webpage.
In the Ministry of Agriculture it is estimated that there are some three thousand agronomists contracted with salaries of RD$15,000 and above.
The number of agronomists is getting scarce, and those that do exist, in the majority are at an advanced age, a situation that leads agricultural professionals to predict a negative impact in Dominican farm production, if the State does not begin to take action to achieve a generational replacement in the careers tied to farm production.
The country lacks a precise register of the numbers of practicing agronomists. The president of the National Association of Farm Professionals (ANPA), Andres Gomez, estimates that there are a little over 10,000.
In just the ANPA there are registered 7,363 professionals, between engineers and technicians, and Gomez calculates that outside the organization there are another 3,000 more professionals.
But, more than the number, Gomez is worried about the age of those professionals, who average 50 years old. He assured reporters that more than 85% of the professionals affiliated to ANPA are at least half a century old and therefore on the way to retirement.
The Dominican College of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (Codia) has a total of 1.460 of these professionals registered. Their spokesman, Ramon Lora, says that there is a minority that is not registered in the association.
This reality puts the plans of President Danilo Medina in checkmate, since the President seeks "to make the farming sector a motor for development," according to what he said in his inauguration address last August. In order to obtain this goal, the President wants to take this sector from a growth rate of 3.9% which was registered in 2010 to a 12% growth in 2016.
But for the country to achieve this goal, it will have to have new professionals that take over the guidance of farm production, taking into account the demand of the current market, since the agronomists that exist, according to the experts, are no longer capable nor is there the numbers need to achieve this.
From the academic environment, the number of professionals that leave the universities and institutes of higher learning is insufficient. Data from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (MESCYT) show that in six years, between 2006 and 2011, barely 1,837 professionals graduated with degrees from what is known as Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences in the different schools.
This contrasts with degrees in Education that between 2006 and 2011 brought the country a total of 53.165 new professionals.
Agronomics is taught at at least 12 centers of higher education, subdivided in the degree paths for Farm Administration, Agronomics, Food Technology, and Veterinary Sciences. In addition there are polytechnic institutes such as Loyola (in San Cristobal and Dajabon) and the Salesian Institute in La Vega, which offer Agronomy at the secondary level.
This field is among those with the least demand by incoming students at the higher education level.
In 2011, of a total of 435,153 students registered, only 4,570 chose one of these degree paths. Of those registered, 273 are at the technical level, 4,153 are at the degree level and 144 are doing post graduate work.
For this same year, the last one registered and available at the Mescyt, only 56 graduated and of these 24 were strictly speaking in Agronomics, four were veterinarians and the other 28 in areas related to farming but not specified in the ministry's statistics.
Natanael Quezada said that he chose to pursue a career in agronomy because of his love of seeing things grow. "I grew up seeing my father working in agriculture." This young 23 year old is studying in the branch of the Catholic University of the Cibao in Constanza, the most important horticultural area in the country.
The little interest of students for Agronomy is attributed to the poor prestige and pay which the members of the profession receive. In this there is agreement both in the members of ANOA as well as among government officials.
In ANPA, according to Gomez, 90% of the affiliates work for the state, through the Ministry of Agriculture, the Agriculture Bank, the Dominican Agrarian Institute (IAD) and the National Institute for Price Stabilization (Inespre).
In the private sector, and as happens with other careers, the salaries fluctuate between RD$30,000 and RD$50,000 a month, although there may be higher salaries, according to the specifications of the job.
But in the public sector, where the majority works, there are salaries from RD$8,000 a month for an agronomical engineer, as can be shown on the payrolls of some institutions.
For the Agronomist Alcibiades Ventura, the small salaries constitute the first reason why young students do not choose this career path. For example, he talks about his case, with seven children, nearly all of them professionals; none chose to become an agronomist.
"I said to my son: "Why are you going to study?" And he answered me "so you don't have to bother with me. I am going to study computers." I suggested that he study Agronomics and he answered: "Are you nuts?....just look at how you are."
Alcibiades Ventura is an Agricultural Engineer, 53 years old. He graduated 13 years ago but he has 40 years of experience in working the land. He was born in the area of San Luis, when Batey Ozama was still functioning. He learned from the time he was little how to cultivate the soil. His grandfather, who began in those efforts long ago, convinced him to study Agronomics and from him he recalls a phrase that he always repeated: "This is a country that is eminently agricultural-he said-and that is where its development lies."
But things did not come out like Ventura expected. Thirteen years after graduating as an engineer, during which he attended specialized courses, today he works for a salary of RD$16,000 a month paid by the IAD, and it is not enough to live on.
In his judgment, the salary that he earns does not correspond to the work he does, in which-he says-he has had to do "everything." While he does not regret studying the career he chose as a profession, and which he says he loves, it seems unfair that he is so poorly paid.
"I love farming since I was young because it is in my blood....This is my passion, but let's not be masochistic. It is not, just because we are agronomists, that we have to earn the miserable salary that we get," he laments.
Los salaries
In 2011, the director of the Agricultural Bank, Paino Abreu said that all of the farm technicians, 246 in total, had a minimum wage of RD$20,000. In the IAD and the SEA, they admit, nonetheless, that they pay salaries lower than that.
In the IAD there is a payroll of about 2,800 employees and the farm specialists number over 400.
Among these specialists there are salaries of RD$10,000, RD$15,000, RD$24,000 and RD$7,935, according to the payroll of 2012 that the entity has on its webpage.
In the Ministry of Agriculture it is estimated that there are some three thousand agronomists contracted with salaries of RD$15,000 and above.
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