Job expectations of students graduating from agricultural and horticultural school

In Flanders a survey was organized in the agricultural and horticultural schools. In this survey the graduate students were questioned on what their expectations are for their professional life. Asked for their intention in the immediate future it was remarkable that 36 % of the graduate students had the intention to continue school. Of the students that will not continue their studies 17 % will work on the parental holding; this is 29 % of the students whose parents are entrepreneurs. Only 10 % of the graduates will start a new holding immediately after they finish school. In the long term 21 % of the graduate students want to take over the holding of their parents, 24 % want to start a brand new enterprise. This means that almost 50 % of the graduate students want to become an entrepreneur one day. Of these future entrepreneurs 45 % will manage an agricultural holding, 15 % will manage a horticultural holding, 23 % a landscape gardening holding and the other 17 % will manage another kind of holding. To maintain the number of holdings in Flanders 475 agricultural and 138 horticultural new holdings are needed every year. According to the study only 207 and 69 new entrepreneurs are available; this is not enough to replace all the holdings that disappear. On the other hand new holdings are larger than the average holding; to keep the total production potential of the sector less new holdings are required. For the graduate students the most important criterion for a job is a good income. On the second place, but very close to the first one is the expectation that the job would offer a varied work. To attract more future entrepreneurs it is necessary to improve the image of the sector.