Good Day Gentlemen,
Has anyone else noticed the declining number of students and apprentices in Horticultural disciplines? We are currently searching for an additional supervisory level employee for a position that has the potential to grow into management but am finding that qualified candidates are not too numerous. I graduated my self from Delaware Valley College with a Hort. Degree in 1985 with over 30 others. The year prior there were almost 40 and the year me over 30 again. Since then, however, the numbers have declined and DVC now has less than 20 in the entire 4 year program. It is my understanding that Cook College at Rutgers has followed a similar fate and no longer offers a degree in Horticulture. I find that this is an unfortunate turn of events as I see first hand the tremendous opportunity that we have in production Horticulture even in suburbanizing Northern New Jersey. What attracts students to Dairy or Agronomy over Horticulture? Perhaps there are greater numbers of Hort. students outside of the Northeast? Perhaps in Europe? I would welcome your thoughts. Perhaps there are better places to recruit than we have tried. Kind Regards, Kurt W. Alstede General Manager Alstede Farms, LLC Chester, New Jersey 07930 United States of America Tel. 908-879-7189
