Dairy farming ranks near bottom in career poll

It's official, at least in the eyes of the Wall Street Journal writers, that dairy farming isn't much fun. In the January 5 issue of the New York-based business paper, dairy farming ranked 199 out of 200 professions. The only job below it was lumberjack. We think many in the dairy industry would beg to differ even with extremely low milk prices on the horizon.

Researchers from CareerCast.com who conducted the survey ranked jobs based on five criteria — environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands, and stress. We agree that these are important job criteria. But we do question weighting in some of the categories. With five of the top eleven jobs involved in some way with the field of math (1.) mathematician; (2.) actuary; (3.) statistician; (10.), accountant; and (11.), economist, we wonder if the survey criteria was tilted to people with the same perspective and job preferences.

Researchers considered indoor work environments more favorable because they are "free of toxic fumes and noise." Jobs that didn't require heavy lifting, crawling, or crouching were preferred over more physically demanding professions. The last time we checked there was an epidemic caused by too many people who do not do enough physical activity, and so maybe a little physical activity isn't all that bad.

Job choice is a matter of personal perspective. Fortunately, there is great variation in careers. Some people like working outdoors in the fresh air. Others like working with animals, caring for the land, don't mind physical activity, and like working with family. Those options and many other positive attributes make dairy farming an enjoyable and noble career.