production technician

senior production technician

production associate

research associate

production

AgReliant Genetics

The health insurance is very good.  Honestly, it is the only reason I stayed as long as I did.  As long as the plan remains the same, then they will have people stay; but, the negatives finally got too abundant for even the health insurance to keep me.

The job (RA) itself is very easy and is good experience.  If you are fresh out of college with no other offers, then this is a good place to go.  You can get a 1-3 years of experience and leverage that elsewhere.  If you love your family or home but need time away from them, then this is also a good option for you.  As you can provide them with great healthcare; but, will miss a lot on the road.  Once you get past the long hours though, it is a great learning experience in seed research.

Now on to the company itself.  There is a lot I can say and a lot of examples to back up my points; but, I want to keep this relatively short.  If you are a part of the research team and not one of the top three to five to ten people in it or a breeder or some sort of scientist, then AgReliant does not care if you have any work/life balance.  They view the role of the RA as someone they can run as hard as they can until they get burned out and then replace them.  There should actually be more RA roles posted online; but, they realized that they could save money by increasing the hour caps and not replacing people who find something better and leave.  I hate to sound so negative; but, it was mentioned in meetings that getting more data from a wider spread is more important to the executive team and beneficial to the company than hiring more team members to try to improve work/life balance and combat turnover.  There is more that I can say; but, I do not feel like taking up anymore of my time on the matter.  

In addition to upper level management and corporate being disconnected from its research station employees and its company comes first attitude, it is very hard to move from division to division within the company.  If you are hired on as an RA, then you’ve got two, maybe three, career paths.  You can stay as an RA and hope to be crowned a Senior RA some day.  Which is unlikely as it was mentioned several times that there is not requirements to being a Senior; so, you cannot really be promoted that way.  You can also hope to become a yield trial manager or a nursery manager.  These positions have virtually the same duties and terrible hours but with the thrill of also getting to have more administrative and management duties required of them.  Lastly, if you can get your Site Lead to allow you to use your education assistance offered by the company (mine said that the logistics of it just didn’t work whenever I brought it up), then you work to become a scientist or breeder.  I would say the last is the least likely, especially now.  However, miracles do happen I guess.  In my experience, if you want to move to sales or a corporate job, then they will take your time and allow you to interview; but, they will select someone already in the department.  This is especially true with corporate.  

I will end my review with this.  I learned a lot with this company and a lot of the experience helped me get my new job.  However, my life has gotten so much better since I have left and I do not intend to go back.  

At seven the crew meets at the plant, they pack up and head out to a  corn field where the team spends long hours in tough conditions removing unwanted corn stalks and tassels from the field to prevent cross pollination. I learned more about agriculture than I had expected to. The management is great as long as you follow rules and expectations. They keep the team members in line and the work culture is fun and easy going, despite the difficult nature of the job. The most difficult part of the job is having to deal with the heat, sunburn, corn rash, mud, bug bites, and sore feet. The best part of the job was the friends I made and the money (when I worked there I was 15 so a minimum wage, 7AM-4PM job was a lot of cash). I had an overall good experience working at AgReliant.

A typical day consisted of walking through the corn field and performing steps necessary to pollinate, such as covering shoots and bagging pollen. As I walked through the field I also helped clean out weeds. I learned a lot about the biology of corn and the different strains of corn. I also learned a lot about work ethic and manual labor. The management was great; they were always available for questions and helping to perform the task. Co-workers were always great and it was easy to work as a team. The hardest part of the job was the hot sun and being itchy from the corn. The most enjoyable part of the job was being outside breathing fresh air.

I used to love working at AgReliant and fully believed I would retire there someday, but the environment/ culture has become toxic since 2017. AgReliant has had multiple restructurings and long-term employees are being forced to “retire”. Turnover is high employees flee out of fear of being fired. Work-life balance is nonexistent and employees are burntout, under appreciated, and underpaid. The current Leadership/ Operating Committee only care about bringing in their Monsanto/ Corteva buddies.

Hard work, while long term employees play with their phones.  you'll never hear "job well done', but they claim they will buy you a pair of boots once a year. sticking point is it takes two years to get on that list. 


  None of the long term people have production facility experience, but if you do keep it to yourself because they are not open to opinions. always do what they say, never as they do.


the only pro is that in the off season you also may get some sitting around time. grudgingly.

The company has gone through some recent challenges but has a leadership team and parent companies that are committed to success.  Overall it is a good place to work with good people.  There is a lot of opportunity to learn and grow your skills in ways you may not be able to in larger organizations. Lack of resources and lack of processes or systems vs what you might be used to in a larger organization can take some getting used to.

This job was relatively easy, being a job designed for high school students to complete over the summer. A typical day includes walking through corn fields from early in the morning to late afternoon. It gets very hot. This is the most difficult part of the job, dealing with the heat. On the other side though, the camaraderie between the people working there is very enjoyable most of the time and makes the heat much more bearable. This job is again designed for strictly high school students, and adults are generally not taken whatsoever.

I was the receptionist and I had very positive feedback from my supervisor.  The best part was the people I worked with and the worst was IT support.  I really like the first president I worked for, he was very in touch with the needs of his employees.  I think anyone who has the opportunity to work for this company will enjoy their time with the company.

Extremely poor leadership in Wisconsin. Currently have a area sales manager who has no clue how to manage or communicate with people. Rest of management also has alot to learn on how to treat it's employees and customers, the merging of 5 brands has desrtroyed the employee culture of this organization, extremely sad to see as it was a good business to work for but is no longer

$7.25 an hour for a place like that is ridiculous!   Working your a!! off for them and thats all they are willing to pay?  They "claim" to be a leader in agriculture,  which means they are making money.  Those kinds nd of wages are a slap on the face!  Shame on you!  There are guys there making a pretty penny, while you make the hardest jobs $7.25 an hour.   I'm glad all you big shots can sleep at night.  Horrible horrible company!  Wouldn't send anyone their way!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Production technician 12 salaries reported	$21.34 per hour
Senior production technician 7 salaries reported	$26.03 per hour
Production associate 3 salaries reported	$22.17 per hour
Research associate 3 salaries reported	$66,667 per year
Production 4 salaries reported	$20.38 per hour

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