Exactly. I personally know several people in this line of work and none are botanists, but are instead organic chemists, geneticists, scientists of various types. The work companies are looking to do with plants requires those areas of expertise.
It's like engineering. Lockheed Martin and Boeing don't hire "airplanasists", they hire engineers and scientists that do the things they need to to to build a plane. The airplane part they learn in the job, the building blocks are science. Yes, there are aerospace engineering programs so this analogy only goes so far.
Can you expand on the types of jobs they are doing? My brother in law is a skilled botanist (runs a botanical garden), but the pay in his line of work is pretty appalling (although ok for him now he has finally climbed the tree a bit as it were).
It's like plant science stuff for companies like Bayer and Monsanto. Check out UC Davis and all the stuff they do. They have a whole college dedicated to wineaking, grape growing, etc. Same with olives. Basically large Ag companies and their research partnerships with famous universities in the space.
It's like engineering. Lockheed Martin and Boeing don't hire "airplanasists", they hire engineers and scientists that do the things they need to to to build a plane. The airplane part they learn in the job, the building blocks are science. Yes, there are aerospace engineering programs so this analogy only goes so far.