OAC said Wednesday its proposed new “master of plant agriculture” (MPAg) program would allow recent graduates and professionals to “quickly upgrade education and training without the need of conducting academic research through a traditional thesis-based program.”

The University of Guelph-based college would offer the first intake to the new program through its Department of Plant Agriculture starting in the fall of 2024, pending approvals from the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance and the provincial ministry of colleges and universities.

The new master’s degree would “address the demands of employers in the private and public sectors who are looking for professionals with advanced expertise in plant breeding, crop production and plant science,” OAC said in a release.

Students would be able to complete the new program in three or four semesters, allowing international students to be eligible to apply for a post-graduate work permit, the college said.

The program would allow students to study on a full- or part-time basis and select courses lining up with “specific career goals in breeding and genetics, biochemistry and physiology, or crop production systems for both agronomic and horticultural crops.”

“We are consistently hearing that employers are seeking graduates that have the scientific knowledge as well as the hands-on training in plant and agricultural science,” Dr. John Cranfield, acting dean of OAC, said in Wednesday’s release.

(Cranfield was named acting OAC dean in July, after dean Dr. Rene Van Acker was seconded to serve as the University of Guelph’s interim vice-president for research, replacing Dr. Malcolm Campbell.)

“This program will fill this gap and provide graduates with valuable skills in collaboration and communication needed for career success,” Cranfield said.

“This program provides an opportunity for students to gain a more comprehensive knowledge in the core subjects of plant agriculture, without focusing on one particular project through a research degree,” Corteva AgriScience research scientist Dr. Eric Shaw said in the university’s release. “I can see this being an advantage to those applying to Corteva.”

OAC emphasized it continues to offer the “thesis-based” M.Sc. and PhD in plant agriculture, which it described as “ideal for students wishing to pursue careers in research in the private or public sector.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The municipality of North Grenville, which includes Kemptville, about 40 km south of Ottawa, closed a deal in December to purchase the Kemptville ag campus, with the official transfer due to take place March 28.

The deal will see North Grenville buy much of the main Kemptville campus and surrounding property, including 34 buildings on about 633 acres of land.

An agreement announced Wednesday between the municipality and the province will see the “majority” of the Kemptville campus transform into an “education and community hub that focuses on: education and training, health and wellness and economic development, emphasizing climate change resiliency and low-carbon innovation.”

The plan follows through on former federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief’s 2014 review of options for the campus.

The University of Guelph, operator of OAC, announced earlier that year it would wind down operations at its Kemptville and Alfred OAC campuses.

North Grenville, on its website, said the Kemptville campus “has long been recognized as a defining element of the local community” and the university’s 2014 decision “came as a shock to many farmers, residents, businesses — and potential students.”

Vanclief, in a report commissioned by the Ontario government, recommended the province transfer the property to the municipality.

The province, in a release Wednesday, said it worked withe the municipality toward a deal “which would support the municipality’s vision of the hub as a place for education and training, health and wellness and economic development.”

Community hubs, the province said, are “locally-driven.” The provincial government’s role is to “make it easier for community partners to offer services that are integrated and co-ordinated, strengthening community partnerships and making the best use of public space.”

Management and maintenance of the new Kemptville campus will be through a wholly-owned not-for-profit corporation operating at arm’s length from the North Grenville government, the municipality said in a separate release.

The mandate for the not-for-profit, the municipality said, will be to develop the Kemptville Campus Education and Community Hub as a “multi-tenant” site.

Some of the campus land and building infrastructure has already been “repurposed” for use by multiple French- and English-language school boards for early years, elementary, secondary, adult education and “related community service activities,” the municipality said.

“Discussion with a number of other education and community groups are ongoing with the objective of leasing all available space on the campus.”

“It has been an extensive process, but we are extremely pleased that an agreement has been reached, and we are looking forward to further exploring the possibilities for the development of the hub and the benefits it will bring to our community,” North Grenville Mayor David Gordon said in the province’s release.

“By working together, we are ensuring that the Kemptville site continues to be a positive economic asset for the community and for Ontario,” provincial Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal said in the same release.

“The Kemptville campus played a pivotal role for agriculture in Eastern Ontario for the past 100 years. Its transformation to an education and community hub under the direction of North Grenville positions it to play an equally relevant and innovative role over the next century.”

The campus was set up in 1917 as Kemptville College to “support and strengthen” farming practices in eastern Ontario. It became part of the University of Guelph in 1997, and got the “campus” designation in 2006.

North Grenville said it plans to hold a press conference sometime this week to “communicate additional information” on the future of the Kemptville site. –– AGCanada.com Network

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The funds announced are to help create a completely new cow-calf and heifer research facility next to the current beef research station, and a new cattle finishing facility after the demolition of some of the current buildings.

Research on genomic testing of cows will also be funded by the money announced during an event Thursday at the research station near Elora.

Jeff Leal, Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, announced $12.4 million in funding for the project.

“This new facility will develop new methods and best practices for more efficient and sustainable beef production, bolstering what is important to us all, the economic competitiveness of Ontario’s beef sector,” said Leal, lauding the groups and organizations that worked to make the beef research facility happen.

“Ontario will continue to be an international leader in livestock research,” he said.

Stewart Cressman, chair of the Agriculture Research Institute of Ontario — which owns and funds agriculture research facilities in the province — said he knows how difficult it is in other parts of the country and the world to get livestock research facilities funded.

“We are very privileged to have a government that invests in livestock research,” he said, adding that such investments are important for the future competitiveness of Ontario and Canadian agriculture.

Such facilities are also necessary for the university to continue to attract leading researchers from around the world to Guelph, said Daniel Atlin, the university’s vice-president, external.

“This facility will have impacts locally, across the province, nationally and around the world,” he said.

Bringing in top faculty, with top research facilities also attracts students, said Rene Van Acker, dean of the Ontario Agriculture College.

It’s a challenge for the university to attract students to its agriculture programs — despite multiple jobs awaiting each graduate — and facilities like the beef research station will help, he said.

Lawrence MacAulay, federal minister of agriculture and food, announced $2 million in support for a genomic project with Beef Farmers of Ontario to profile cows in Eastern Canada to improve feed efficiency.

A one per cent improvement in feed efficiency can result in annual savings of $11.1 million for the beef sector, he said. It also helps reduce costs at the farm and reduces methane and manure volumes.

In the long term, the facility will help farmers who are dealing with more public pressure on environmental practices, said Joe Hill, vice-president of Beef Farmers of Ontario.

“As an individual farmer it is harder to address these things, but at a research scale, we can sort out where the issues are and how to best manage them at a farm level. It is going to save farmers a lot of time and energy trying to sort through what their options are and how to meet these challenges.”

The facility will help beef producers remain competitive and able to take advantage of trade opportunities, he said.

The beef facility has been many years in planning and is the second major livestock facilities investment at the university, after the large dairy research facility which opened in 2015.

Work is expected to begin this fall on the beef cow research facility, with the feedlot facility after that, and completion expected by sometime in 2018.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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Researchers at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Agricultural College (OAC), as part of the Regional and Rural Broadband (R2B2) project, are studying how “current and future connectivity” influences farmers’ adoption of precision agriculture (PA).

Farm operators growing field crops in southwestern Ontario and the Niagara region and either using, or not yet using, PA technologies are invited to take part in an R2B2 e-survey online.

The study group’s findings so far show the factors that influence farmers’ decisions on PA applications include initial cost, return on investment, training and technical skills, as well as the “diversity of their operations.”

However, the group added, “there are indications that information technology (IT) infrastructure capacity, particularly access to broadband internet, has a significant influence on PA uptake.”

The amount of data collected, stored and processed through PA instruments, and the software required to connect multiple platforms, takes “significant computing power and upload/download speeds,” the group said.

“Broadband,” for the study’s purposes, is defined as high-speed internet with download speeds over five Mbps.

“A lack of capacity in this regard can override any advantages for a producer considering adopting PA,” such as training or affordability, the group said.

For this study, “the objective is to analyze the extent to which access to high-speed internet, or lack thereof, serves as an enabler/barrier to the adoption of various PA applications.”

Funding for this study comes from the Innovation and Growth Policy Division of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The AAFC division is, more generally, looking at the “current state” of the use of PA in Canada, its impact on the ag sector and the factors that either “facilitate and impede adoption” of such applications.

The division’s ongoing research and analysis “may also be used to inform development of future policy and program options,” the OAC study group said.

The summary results of the study are expected to be available by January on the R2B2 website. — AGCanada.com Network

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The new name, the Department of Animal Biosciences, “helps describe the department’s evolution from a livestock husbandry department in the 1870s to the highly dynamic and integrated department it is today,” OAC dean Rob Gordon said in a release Monday.

University of Guelph president Franco Vaccarino approved the renaming and notified the university senate last week, the school said.

“After a long consultation period with our staff, students, faculty and alumni, I am so pleased to see the department renamed,” department chair Jim Squires said in the same release.

Several “internal and external audiences” don’t realize the department works in genetics, physiology, welfare and behaviour, animal models for health, animal metabolism, reproduction, nutrition, equine management, animal care and the social and environmental impacts of both livestock and companion animals, he said.

Squires and department staff, faculty and students “feel the new name will better communicate the department’s mandate to others,” the university said.

Communications and documents are to be updated accordingly over the next few months. — AGCanada.com Network

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