General Agriculture

Not sure yet whether your future lies with cattle or with crops? Lakeland College’s General Agriculture certificate lets you find out in a single year of face-to-face study on the Vermilion campus, with a choice between an animal science stream and a crop stream.

Every General Agriculture student builds a shared toolkit: computer training, business record-keeping and an introduction to precision farming technology. Students in the crop stream then concentrate on practical field skills, learning to identify weeds and other plants and to assess pest problems in growing crops. Those in the animal science stream gain basic production skills for dairy, cow-calf and sheep enterprises, the daily husbandry that keeps a livestock unit running. Either way, the certificate works as a compact first year of agricultural training rather than a narrow specialism.

Lakeland splits this certificate roughly in half: classroom theory, then time on the college farm putting it into practice. That farm is the Student-Managed Farm, Powered by New Holland, with beef and dairy herds, range land and crop land, and General Agriculture students also learn in the Dairy Learning Centre and the Agriculture Technology Centre in Vermilion. The certificate is designed as a stepping stone: one more year at Lakeland completes the Crop Technology diploma or an Animal Science Technology diploma major, and Athabasca University offers a block transfer of up to 30 credits, plus up to 30 more course by course, into its Bachelor of Science Post Diploma programme.

Lakeland points General Agriculture graduates towards roles such as agricultural fieldman, crop service provider, livestock facility operator, feed industry representative and agricultural sales representative, as well as hands-on work on family and commercial farms. The certificate suits newcomers to Canadian agriculture who want real farm experience quickly, and anyone who wants to test the field before committing to a two-year agricultural diploma.