Growing Opportunity

Anew location-flexible program from Great Plains College is filling a gap and delivering agriculture education opportunities to rural Saskatchewan.

Students in the college’s Agricultural Science Certificate get a year of in-person and remote instruction in crop technology, along with lessons in accounting, marketing and communications. Many live hours away from the nearest postsecondary institution that would offer similar programming. Students learn about local crops, soil zones, weed control, and agricultural machinery. After completion, students have the skills and knowledge to market grain and operate an agricultural business.

Great Plains College has six campuses in communities across Saskatchewan, and 85% of college graduates are employed within three years. Now, those benefits are reaching even more people.

“(The program)’s worked out really well for us and the communities we serve,” said Laura Thibault, the college’s Agriculture Program Coordinator.

The program’s format was new to college staff and students alike. In its first iteration, students took theory courses from one of the college’s campuses while an instructor taught from Cumberland College in Melfort, Saskatchewan. Labs were taught in person on campus to provide handson learning.

Cumberland College originally started brokering the program from Lakeland College, and in 2022 was looking to expand the offering to include other regional colleges in the program delivery. Great Plains agreed to trial the program for one year to see how it would go over in the area.

The program was a huge success — so much so that Great Plains took the lead role in the program consortium in 2023, hiring local instructors to help facilitate the program. Now, classes are taught from Great Plains College, Swift Current Campus, with a live broadcast to students in Humboldt, Melfort, and Yorkton. Labs continue to be taught in person in each community.

It provides students that don’t want to leave home with an opportunity to get an education in an area that they’re comfortable in.

The college works in tandem with local partners to deliver meaningful lab and field experiences, with the goal of connecting students with employers and fulfilling local workforce needs.

“Manufacturing facilities, for example, don’t just need trades people. They also need business people. They need office people. They need sales. All of ag is interconnected,” Thibault said. “When you do have a basic understanding of the production, it’s easier to look at, ‘How do we make production better?’”

Students who finish the one-year program are automatically eligible to continue their diploma at Lakeland College in Vermillion, Alberta, some five hours away. The program is playing an important role offering education where it historically hasn’t been as accessible, Thibault added.

“It provides students that don’t want to leave home with an opportunity to get an education in an area that they’re comfortable in,” she said. “Many of our students get scholarships from local businesses and local community members who are hoping to grow not just this program but grow education here on a higher level.”

It’s all a part of Great Plains College’s larger efforts to develop a skilled workforce that serves rural Saskatchewan and Canadian agriculture as a whole as the industry faces a shortage of workers. “We want to provide access to quality agricultural education close to home so that more people can access the training they need to have a successful career in the industry.”

And when that happens, everyone benefits — industry and rural communities alike.