Southern California Job Market : Challenges / Opportunities : Bumper Crop of Job Options in Agriculture : Computerization and global transactions have cut a path for scientists, marketing specialists and financial experts in the business of farming.

The bad news is that American workers have left agricultural jobs in droves, and the number of farms continues to drop steadily--victims of mechanization and the 1980s farm crisis.

The good news is that the agricultural services industry is growing faster than ever before, and jobs for scientists and marketers and financial specialists are going begging. Sound illogical? It’s not.

At the heart of the paradox is agriculture’s 20th-Century sea-change, a transformation fueled by technology, greater efficiency and a more accessible global marketplace. Farms today are bigger and increasingly productive; women and men entering agriculture are more likely to be consultants rather than actual farmers.

Consider: In 1960, one farmer was able to feed an average of 26 people with the output from his fields. In 1972, that same farmer was able to feed 50. By 1984, the number was 78, said David Whaley, an assistant professor of agricultural education at Colorado State University, “and I’m sure it’s even better in 1989.”

“Today a farmer is producing so much--and so much more efficiently--that other agricultural jobs have risen to prominence,” Whaley said. “The chances of being in production these days are much less than they were 20 years ago.”

And even if you are in production--involved in the actual planting and harvesting of food and tending of livestock--technology has made your job a far different one than it was a generation ago.

Many dairy farms, for example, are run by computer. Each cow is fitted with a tag containing breeding information, milk output and special nutritional needs. When the cow walks into the barn to be fed and milked, the computer reads the tag electronically, and the cow is automatically given the proper ration of feed.

There are greenhouses whose sprinkler and heating systems are controlled by computers that sense and accommodate changes in temperature and moisture. And many farmers are hooked up to special computer systems that allow them access to information on commodity prices and trade opportunities.

All of which means that farmers need to know more than just the fundamentals of planting and harvesting.

“We do know that the educational level of farmers and farm managers has increased over the past 10 to 15 years,” said Charles Smallwood, dean of the School of Agricultural Sciences and Technology at California State University, Fresno. “Many have gotten degrees in agribusiness and farm management as well as in production areas such as plant and animal science.”

Randy Rocca, 30, is a third-generation raisin and asparagus farmer and a second-generation viticulture graduate of Cal State Fresno. Rocca and his father, Earl, computerized their farm five years ago and are planning to update their system later this year.

Their computer, the Roccas have found, is a piece of farm equipment as valuable as the mechanized raisin harvester that they created and now depend on. Having a computer, Randy Rocca said, is “a life-or-death situation. We couldn’t farm without that thing.”

The Roccas cultivate 200 acres spread over four ranches in the Fresno area. Their sophisticated raisin harvester allows them to pick 10 acres of raisins in one day--generally replacing as many as 50 to 60 laborers.

Each ranch is a cost center, Rocca says, where the family can track costs and growing practices--tasks such as pruning and spraying.

“It gives us a real good cost analysis on how much time we spend in each field,” Rocca says. “We can graph how well the machinery can pay off in contrast to pickers.”

And between mid-February and the end of April, during asparagus season, Rocca starts each day by plugging into a computer network that gives him market quotes.

“I need to know what the market is every day,” Rocca said. “We pick and pack and do all marketing ourselves. There were no such needs for my father when he was my age. . . . You knew then that if you worked a good 10-hour day on the tractor, that was enough.”

Ron Fisher, 33, gives, perhaps, a better view of California agriculture. Yes, he’s a farmer, cultivating 40 acres. But he’s also a businessman. Necessity caused him to branch out; changing opportunities in agriculture allowed that to happen.

“If I had to rely on my farm income, I’d be broke,” Fisher says. “You have to vertically integrate as well as diversify.”

All of which explains California Agri Nut, a walnut marketing and processing company in Modesto. Fisher operates as a grower’s representative, exploiting greater marketing avenues and increasing grower sophistication to arrange for the sale and processing of nuts throughout a vast territory.

“In the past, the farmer either belonged to a cooperative or did marketing through a local organization or a sole proprietorship,” Fisher says. “Joe Farmer sold to Joe Marketer, who had an outlet in San Francisco. It was very small, very local.”

Fisher operates statewide, finding growers who are dissatisfied with their present marketing arrangements. He then operates as a go-between, fitting growers with processors and negotiating the best deal for his clients.

California Agri Nut--among other, larger concerns--is the kind of agricultural support business that is flourishing these days, farm experts say. And the kinds of jobs that are being created are a far cry from plain production.

Only about 8% of the openings for college graduates in agriculture are in production, says Jane Coulter, deputy administrator for the USDA’s cooperative state research service. What colleges of agriculture and natural resources are really producing these days are agriculture science and business professionals.

And they’re not producing enough. Nationally, she says, about 15% of all jobs in agricultural science, management and finance are going unfilled. And about 17% of all agricultural marketing jobs also remain open.

A farming background or degree in agriculture is not necessarily a requirement for employment. Someone in marketing, for example, could contact any of the companies or organizations that distribute or promote farm products about job opportunities. Financial skills are even more transferable.

“It’s a very healthy job market,” Coulter said. “There are considerable shortages.”