Workforce Skills and Agribusiness Needs for Development in Arab Countries

Abstract

The disconnect between the perceptions of the agriculture sector in terms of skills and competencies needed by workers and the abilities of agriculture graduates and others entering the workforce is existent throughout much of the world and especially in the Arab world. Economic development cannot be sustaining until this disconnect, a skills-gap, is resolved. This chapter provides an overview of the skills and competencies needed in agriculture and the perceptions of the extent graduates possess those skills and competencies. A system for identifying the workforce development priorities, namely high importance and low worker preparedness, is described. The last section of the chapter provides a mechanism to identify what skills and competencies agriculture teachers and faculty need to develop and enhance in order to teach students the skills they need to enter and be successful in the agriculture sector.