BETHLEHEM, Pa. — A list of the five most useless degrees – three of which are agriculture-related – included in a story posted on the Internet didn’t even come from the organization to which the list is attributed, according to a spokeswoman for the organization.

The story was posted earlier this year on the website of Yahoo! Education. The article appears to attribute the list to the National Assoc. of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and its yearly job outlook report, but the organization doesn’t include such a list in that report, according to Mimi Collins, director of communications for NACE.

For its job outlook report, NACE surveys its employer members, most of which are seeking graduates for jobs in business, engineering and technology, Collins said. While NACE does have a few agriculture-related companies among its members, there aren’t enough to be able to come up with adequate information to predict the availability of agricultural jobs, she explained.

NACE is a professional organization for those focused on the employment of college-educated students, Collins said. It serves college career services professionals, and businesses and organizations that have well-established college relations and recruiting programs.

The story posted on Yahoo! listed three degrees – agriculture, animal science and horticulture – as those to be avoided because of a lack of job availability or because the degree is too specific. The other two degrees named were in fashion design and theater.

“We just don’t have a lot of organizations that are focused on agriculture or, for example, health care,” Collins noted. “But you only have to look at those and see that there’s a demand. Our (job outlook) survey just offers a snapshot of the hiring forecast for new college graduates based on what our members tell us.”

The Yahoo! article wasn’t written by anyone on the site’s staff, a spokesperson for the site said, adding not all content on the site is developed by Yahoo! writers.

Regardless of where the information came from, several universities with agriculture-related programs have released statements challenging the numbers and conclusions in the article.

Among those statements was a joint press release from the University of Illinois, Iowa State University, The Ohio State University and Purdue University.

It is important for the universities to make the statement before students considering careers in agriculture change their minds because of the Yahoo! article, said Tom Polito, director of student services for ISU’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“The article is tragically misleading,” he noted. “What if some great student, who at one point wanted to go to college to make some contribution to agriculture, would go on to something else because of this? This idea that there are a limited number of places for graduates to go isn’t accurate.”

The vast majority – at least 98 percent – of Iowa State’s agriculture-related graduates are placed in jobs within 3-6 months of graduation, Polito said.

“The opportunities are certainly there for our graduates,” he explained. “We’ve got seven billion people on Earth and in the lifetime of today’s high school graduates, we’ll hit 10 billion. How are we going to feed these 10 billion people?”

Students graduating from the University of Tennessee’s College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources are in such demand that some industries are offering scholarships to potential future employees, said Caula Beyl, dean of the college.

“They’re concerned about the availability of graduates,” she explained. “With the scholarships, it’s basically as if they’re growing their own graduates.” Among the industries offering scholarships are dairy, poultry processing and businesses that provide financial services to farms, she noted.

Beyl said her initial reaction to the Yahoo! article was “incredulity,” adding there’s a high demand for graduates with agriculture-related degrees.

“There’s such great potential for our graduates,” she stated. “They’re being snapped up. Some areas are hotter than others, but foodservice, agricultural economics, biosystems engineers, animal production – these are all hot.”

The eventual need to feed even more people and the diversity of programs offered by agricultural colleges make these programs both popular and essential, she said.

“All those people have to eat. Who’s going to make sure the food is there? Who’s going to make sure it’s grown, processed and transported? Who develops the technology? That requires education. You’ve got to be educated. You’ve got to be smart. It’s not as easy as it used to be.”

According to a report written for the USDA by Purdue, more than 54,000 jobs will be available annually to graduates in the agricultural, food and renewable natural resources sectors from 2010-15. Of those, 74 percent will be in business and science, 15 percent in agriculture and forestry production and 11 percent in education, communications and governmental services.

Employers prefer graduates with degrees in agriculture, life sciences, forestry, natural resources and veterinary medicine over those from allied fields for careers in food, renewable energy and the environment, the report noted.

Numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics paint a gloomier picture for growth in agriculture-related fields. For example, the number of jobs available in crop production is expected to drop from 981,600 in 2010 to 912,800 in 2020, said Richard Henderson, an economist with the bureau.

In animal production, the number of jobs is expected to drop from 832,500 in 2010 to 785,100 in 2020. Overall, jobs in agriculture, which also includes forestry, fishing and hunting, are expected to drop from 2.1 million in 2010 to 2 million in 2020.

“The consolidation of farms is a factor (in the outlook for agriculture-related jobs),” Henderson noted. “They’re larger farms and they’re using better technology. More production per worker means they need fewer workers to do a job.”