University News for May 9, 2011

The Director of the University of Manitoba's School of Agriculture says interest in its two-year diploma program continues to grow.

The University of Manitoba's School of Agriculture, operated by Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, coordinates the two-year Agriculture Diploma program and offers a variety of certificate, non-credit and professional development programs for the agri-food industry.

On April 29th, as part of its 2011 graduation ceremony, 64 graduates received their Diplomas in Agriculture.

School of Agriculture director Michele Rogalsky says the two-year Agriculture Diploma program has a long history of preparing individuals to manage farms or enter careers in agribusiness.

Clip-Michele Rogalsky-University of Manitoba:
The majority of the graduates are returning to farms either part time, a few of them are full time, but most them their long-term and interim career goals have some involvement on their family farms.

Many of them have secured employment in agribusiness, a lot of them in the sales and service sector in the crops area as well as in the livestock area.

The graduates from this program have really strong technical production skills as well as financial management skills.

I think that serves them well for managing a farm as well as contributing to agribusiness.

I think employers recognize that and that's where we're seeing the success rate for our graduates securing employment when they complete this program.

Students who graduate with a two-year diploma program are eligible to become technical agrologists with the Manitoba Institute of Agrology.

As well students who complete the two-year diploma program with a satisfactory grade point average can credit two years of that training towards an agriculture degree.

This year's graduating class, there's over a dozen of them who are planning to return to start their degree next fall.

Rogalsky says interest in the School of Agriculture's Agriculture Diploma program continues to grow and she reports an increased number of applications for the fall.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is a presentation of the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural & Food Sciences