Farm work and caring for animals is useful experience for agricultural technicians. Previous work in a horticultural environment such as fruit picking is useful experience for horticultural technicians. Agricultural technicians may deal with acids, needles and scalpels, so they need to be aware of health and safety precautions and procedures. Research is also becoming more commercially focused and there is a greater need for the research to be of value in the market place. A greater knowledge of genetics and molecular biology is also required as further breakthroughs in science lead to a greater understanding of the way plants and crops work.
Staff tend to stay in their positions because there are limited opportunities to change employers.
I work for a horticultural research institute as a research associate. I got into this work because I grew up on an orchard, and I guess it was a natural progression to take an interest in this work. I work in close relationship with a scientist, working on berry fruit. The job involves controlled pollination of plants to produce seed, germinating and growing seedlings, collecting information and data on them, and analysing the results. During the summer there is a lot of outside work and during winter we mainly work inside, analysing data and writing reports.