Careers in agriculture are hot right now, a bright spot in the overall economy.

We talked with Eric Spell, president of AgCareers.com, at the recent National Agri-Marketing Association annual convention, where the company was actually born 12 years ago as a student presentation by the University of Florida. (Go Gators!)

“It is an exciting time to be in agriculture,” Eric says. “Through the first quarter of 2012 compared to 2011, we’ve seen a 17% increase in the number of jobs, which is great.”

Eric says one of the biggest growth areas in agricultural jobs is in precision. “It’s everything from aerospace to people who can service the equipment within the dealerships,” he said.

The tenth annual AgCareers.com Ag HR Roundtable is coming up August 7-9 on the campus of Tyson Foods in Springdale, Arkansas, which Eric says will also include their sister company, CareersInFood.com. “The speaker lineup will be the best yet and it will be a great celebration,” he says of the educational and networking event. Last year’s conference was attended by a record of nearly 200 participants and they expect this year’s conference to be even bigger. “The first one that we had, I think we had 87 attendees.”

Attendance is limited to 220 and Eric told us at NAMA when registration had just opened that they already had 30 registered – so if you want to be there, it would be good to register as soon as possible. It’s well worth it for agricultural HR people and anyone involved in food or agriculture education. Find out more on the conference website.

Listen to my interview with Eric here: Eric Spell Interview