Assiniboine Community College is introducing a new program intended to help fill jobs in the Manitoba pork industry.
Tim Hore, Dean of the Russ Edwards School of Agriculture & Environment at ACC says the Swine Production Foundations program will have its first intake in December.
"It's really meant to educate and train those individuals that like working with animals, enjoy working with others, and really looking for a rewarding career that has a lot of upward mobility in the pork sector."
Hore says they worked with industry groups to ensure the program would fill a gap in the labour force.
"It was really a partnership with respect to understanding what the need of the industry is and was, and as a College, and as Manitoba's Ag College, being able to listen, learn, and then develop a program that was really meeting the labour gaps that they were telling us they're having trouble to fill."
The program will be fully online, and students will be able to work through it at their own pace.
"The program basically is three courses, it's 24 credits, and it's completely self-directed, so students have the opportunity over a five-year period to finish the three courses at their own speed, and whatever makes sense for them. They could finish that within quite a shorter time frame, but it's really up to them in terms of how fast they want to work through the three courses that are required."
Hore says there is about 80 hours worth of work for the Swine Operation Foundation Course, another 80 hours for the Professionalism for Swine Tech Course, and 160 hours for the Swine Production Practices Course.
More information about the program can be found on the ACC Website here.
