College assesses need for management training in agriculture

Friday, October 31, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

Farmers and food processing officials in Norfolk County have told Fanshawe College representatives they’re interested in education programs to train managers for food companies and large farms.

And now the London-based college is exploring if there’s an interest in this type of program in other areas where it has campuses, including Woodstock and St. Thomas. The college also has smaller operations in Tillsonburg, Goderich and Kincardine and Clinton, says Susan Cluett, dean of Fanshawe College’s faculty of regional and continuing education.

She says farmers with “larger and more complex farming operations” are looking for training for managers in “human resources, renewable energy requirements of the farm, sales, e-commerce and on-line marketing, commodity pricing, food safety regulations, and transportation logistics.”

So far, Fanshawe has held focus groups at its Simcoe Campus in Norfolk County. “We’re starting to hear a critical mass of interest. It’s not just one person saying it in one community.” Now, the college wants to hold focus groups at its other campuses and the smaller locations in Huron and Perth counties to explore the need.

“To us it seems to be an emerging area of interest that we’re quite interested to explore in terms of what we might offer that can meet those needs,” she says.

The need for farm management training has “evolved from an evolution in the nature of agricultural business and industry,” she says.

Fanshawe hasn’t made any decisions yet on whether to offer the training. After college officials complete an evaluation of the need they will put together a proposal on what the program would look like, including what courses would be offered, whether the course would be delivered part-time, be part of a certificate or diploma program, be an on-line course, have short-term, intensive delivery or be scheduled as workshops. That proposal would be considered internally at the college. There’s no date on when the initial exploration phase has to be done.

“No matter what we do we’d want to ensure there’s some flexibility so that students can tailor their learning to their local circumstances,” Cluett says.

The college is always interested in “growing our programming in the regional communities where the programs we develop can meet a local need that might not otherwise be met,” she says.

Mark Wales, chair of the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council and Ontario Federation of Agriculture president, says “there certainly is a need out there” for training courses for farm managers. “With farm sizes increasing, especially in some sectors like greenhouse, and people having a larger labour force there’s a need for people with good, broad managements skills, both business and human resources skills.”

The council works with industry leaders, governments and educational stakeholders to research, develop and communicate solutions for farm employment and skills development. Its interactive website gives a listing of all courses offered on all aspects of agriculture across Canada and provides other tools, Wales notes.

Nationally there are only four occupational codes for agriculture, “so according to the federal government there’s only four different kinds of jobs in agriculture,” he says. The council is working on a big project to “show how many job descriptions there are,” he notes. It was started last year and will take three years in total to complete. BF