State Certificate Program Recognizes Ag Achievements
A growing consumer demand for locally
produced foods is creating a job market for West
Virginia workers in dozens of fields, and state
officials have started a program that will help
recent graduates and business owners.
The West Virginia Department of Education
(WVDE) now awards an Agriculture Education
Concentration Certificate of Completion that
students can use to document various agricultural
specialties. This certificate also gives business
owners an opportunity to recruit workers they
know have the job skills they need.
That’s because industry representatives were
consulted during the development of the curricula.
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture
and other subject matter experts also collaborated
on the development of the program and officially
endorse the certificate.
The program serves two purposes: to help
business owners verify the skills and knowledge
of a potential employee, and to encourage high
school students to consider agriculture as a career.
“We want employers to understand that this is
a statewide program with real substance behind it;
it’s not just a sheet of paper,” said Commissioner
of Agriculture Walt Helmick. “We have
tremendous economic opportunity as a state if we
decide to feed ourselves, but as in any industry,
we need a trained workforce to make it happen.”
Agriculture education certificates are offered in
agribusiness, animal systems, food products and
processing, natural resources, plant systems and
power, structural and technical systems.
All student “completers” must take
Introduction to Agriculture, Food and Natural
Resources, a core concentration course, a
specialized concentration course and two years
of Supervised Agric ձ