A Sustainable Ranching Enterprise Diploma program at the Williams Lake Thompson Rivers University campus will be available to students next year through one-time funding from the provincial government.
Executive Director, Dr. Ray Sanders calls the program an exciting and important opportunity for the Cariboo Chilcotin.
“Currently anyone who wants to enter into a ranching management program has to go to Alberta and there’s not another program like this in British Columbia,” he says.
“We’re very excited about it. This is something the BC Cattlemen’s Association have wanted for a long, long time and so it’s a need we’re able to fill.”
The Ministry of Advanced Education will provide $154,000 for the delivery of the program.
Sanders says the program will start in January and likely see an intake of 20 students.
He says tuition revenues and funding from other agencies will ensure that the program will continue.
Considerable attention of the program will be devoted to the locally relevant challenges of beef and sheep production and the provisioning of food through winter periods.