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PA:State cultivates farm labor at Dover high school

Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding talks about the looming shortage of agriculture workers and his push to the next generation to consider jobs in agriculture.Brett Sholtis. Pennsylvania faces a shortage of workers in the agricultural sector, and it's looking to York County to fill some of those jobs.Top officials from the state departments of agriculture and education toured Dover High School Tuesday, where they encouraged students in the farm-oriented school district to seek agriculture-related educations.Agriculture is Pennsylvania's largest industry, said Scott Sheely, special assistant to workforce development for the Department of Agriculture. With a wave of Baby Boomers about to retire, Pennsylvania will need to fill 75,000 agriculture jobs in the next 10 years.Those jobs run the gamut from people who milk cows to researchers who develop new crop hybrids.For those who want to pursue advanced degrees, engineers, agronomists and scientists are needed, Sheely said. A much larger pool of "technically-trained" workers is also in strong demand. That includes those who would do things like repair equipment and work with animals.The greatest number of jobs are for what Sheely called "production workers." Those people might harvest fruit or work in a food processing plant.

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York Daily News
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