P.E.I.'s farm technician program adds high-tech content

P.E.I.'s farm technician apprenticeship program has had a major makeover, adding new high-tech content.

"Our farms are changing, the size of our farms, the technology on our farms," said Laurie Loane, executive director of the P.E.I. Agriculture Sector Council. 

"There is a huge push by our students that took the program to make sure that it's following suit with what they're seeing on the farms."

The program, which started in 2009, offers workers who are eligible for employment insurance two blocks of classroom training over two years as well as paid on-the-job training.

Once the workers go back to the farm, they track their apprenticeship hours in a log book.

Eventually they write a Blue Seal exam through the provincial government. There have been 30 Blue Seals so far.

Precision agriculture

The new rewrite happened last year, with funding support from the province and now includes a section on precision agriculture and training on GPS systems.

"As we continue to grow, it's important to have our buffer zones, it's important to be good stewards of the land," Loane said. 

"Making sure that we're utilizing every piece of every inch of field that we possibly can, complying with all of our laws to go with it."

Loane said employers are also pleased with the update.

"Because as their equipment changes, most of our tractors are extremely large, they're coming equipped with GPS systems," Loane said. 

"The training that is being done here, then that can be utilized on the farm."

'Keep up to technology'

Doug Burris has been one of the program's instructors since it started.

"It's no different than any other industry, you can fall behind very quickly," Burris said.

"The whole program has been more or less rewritten including every little bit of technology that we can come up with including the GPS, the precision agriculture section of it."

Burris said many of the apprentices are already using the farm technology.

"It's quite involved with the planting and harvesting of fields, even the modules that we're doing here dealing with the equipment."

He said the updated curriculum is important.

"Even if the student does not use it directly day after day, it introduces it to them, because these people will someday become managers," Burris said.

'It will be the future'

Alexandra Macdonald works in the dairy side of Mull Na Beinne Farm in Grahams Road, P.E.I.

"Even just this past week, we've been watching videos about the brand-new tractors that are out," Macdonald said.

"I don't have a lot of experience with it and I'm a little bit nervous with technology, but it's definitely good to learn, especially since it will be the future."

"It's really great going with the automated system because it's just not as labour intensive either," said Kurt Rogers, who works for a farm that grows organic produce.

"We do most of our stuff by hand, but we're slowly getting more technologically advanced."

Support from Dalhousie

The Dalhousie faculty of agriculture helped update the training blocks for the apprenticeship program.

"Farms in Atlantic Canada are adopting on-farm technology in all aspects of their businesses," said Tracy Kittilsen, manager of extended learning with Dalhousie.

"We worked closely with experts in this field to update the in-class curriculum to ensure that what the students were learning in class was supporting their work experience."

The program is in its 11th year.

"We're hoping that this rewrite will do us for the next few years but as you know, labour is very hard to get on the farm," Loane said.

"As that changes and we're trying to utilize our equipment to do a lot more of the work then, yes, we will end up having to look at rewrites again in the future as technology changes."

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