The young people are becoming more and more interested in universities offering agricultural degrees, even though the number of those who pass the high school leaving exam has been halving every year since 2011. Why is this?
“Kids are starting to realize that agriculture has a significant contribution to the growth of the economy, hence the number of those applying for admission has been on the rise in the last three years,” explained Sorin Cimpeanu, rector of the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine (USAMV).
“The young people are more realistic about the opportunities on the labor market; the dissemination of the information about the EU funds made available for agriculture in 2014-2020 or about the program providing up to EUR50,000 funding to young farmers helped.”
Agriculture accounted for 1% of the 3.5% economic growth of 2013, while industry accounted for 2.5%. Agriculture contributes 6% to 7% to the gross domestic product formation on average.
The seven faculties of the USAMV offered 2,600 undergraduate places this year, 1,120 of which subsidized, with almost two people competing over one subsidized place.
”About 50% of the applicants to the University of Agronomic Sciences come from rural communities, while the percentage of such applicants to other universities is 24%, so we have a massive absorption of rural applicants,” Cimpeanu added.
He added that one of the reasons why young people enroll at the university he runs is that getting financing via some of the EU funded projects requires at least an agricultural degree.
EU funded projects are not only attractive to fresh high-school graduates. Florin Dutu, partner and head of the litigation department with law firm Voicu & Filipescu is now a student of the Faculty of Animal Science with the USAMV in Bucharest. Why did he go back to college 15 years after graduating from the Law School?
“I enrolled at the Faculty of Animal Science to get a choice for the future, I am thinking of getting some EU funding for a small fishery business near Bucharest,” Dutu said.
“I’ve been selling legal representation services for fifteen years but I am also considering the option of production activities for medium and long-term.”
Employers, too, are looking for college graduates with a degree in agriculture, even though less than 2% of the total students in the country are currently enrolled in such programs. The stock of agricultural students stood at 11,500 in 2012, according to National Statistics Institute data.
USAMV’s Sorin Cimpeanu says only one third of the high school graduates have chosen engineering, agricultural, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology degrees since 2000, as most prefer humanities.
“We need college graduates with an agricultural degree, we have students doing internships now. Practical experience is the big problem here, the young people come with significant theoretical knowledge, but hardly have any practical experience and to our surprise, universities do not come to us for partnerships,” explained Adina Trufas, manager of the livestock farms of the Dutch agricultural group of DN Agrar, which is currently employing 100 people.
“They are good kids who want to learn and my advice for young people is to choose agriculture, because there are opportunities in this business in Romania in the future.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)