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Central Lakes College and AgCentric have been awarded a $43,037 workforce development grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
With the funds, CLC and AgCentric will collaborate with the Ag Innovation Campus (AIC) at University of Minnesota Crookston and Minnesota Farmers Union to create a specialized soybean crush facility employee training program at the AIC. The training will be mandatory for AIC employees and available to other crush facilities that want to upskill their existing workforces to align with the growing demands of agriculture specialty production and value-added processing.
The grant is part of a larger initiative by DEED, which included 11 workforce development grants totaling over $1.4 million to six Minnesota educational institutions that partnered with Minnesota businesses to develop and deliver workforce training programs addressing those employers’ specific needs.
Keith Olander, Executive Director of AgCentric, said the training will expand industry-wide as the program is planned through the grant.
“AgCentric is a connector of education and agriculture to meet the needs of our students and their potential employers in the food and fiber industry,” he said.
