After more than 50 years, Fairview College is ending the program that launched its beginning.
Academic vice-president Paul Hunt said the two-year agriculture diploma program will end when the final students graduate in the spring.
He said the Peace River area college will replace the program with agriculture short courses such as grain dryer operation, farm welding and machinery maintenance.
“Our intent is to be more responsive to agriculture in northwest Alberta.”
He said the move to short courses recognizes that prairie agriculture is changing, with fewer and larger farms.
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“Small farmers are going the way of the dinosaur and it’s reflected in the enrolment.”
This year the college suspended its first-year agriculture program after only two students applied.
For the past several years it’s been a struggle for the college to attract students to the agriculture program.
The college opened in 1951 as the Fairview School of Agriculture and Home Economics, joining Vermilion and Olds in teaching agriculture in Alberta. All three colleges offered strong agriculture programs with many students returning to the farm.
In the past few years the agriculture staff has tried to change the curriculum and its delivery in an attempt to attract students.
Hunt blames the low enrolment on Fairview’s northern location.
The other agriculture programs at Vermilion, Lethbridge and Olds are closer to large centres and are able to attract more people.
Hunt said the college farm would continue to operate to accommodate the successful animal health technology and equine programs. Agriculture staff will be transferred to other college programs, pending the outcome of the year’s budget deliberations.
