49 post-secondary agriculture students across Alberta were sponsored to attend the 2018 Livestock Care Conference.

The conference was put on by Alberta Farm Animal Care and was hosted in Olds last week.

Students applied to be sponsored by writing a short essay on the topic,  "25 Years of Change in the Agricultural Industry". The sponsorship included registration, meals, and accommodations for one night.

One of the sponsored students was Shannon Copps, who is taking the Agriculture Science Program at Lethbridge College majoring in Plant and Soil Science.

Copps says, she was able to attend the conference through her beef cattle production elective.

"I think I'm going to take this information back to my farm and monitor my own animals at home, using best management practices and use the beef handling practices that we learned today."

Copps says, one of her favorite speakers was Levi Hofer from the New York Colony, who spoke about continued improvements to their poultry barn.

Lauren Gouw is also from Lethbridge College taking the Agriculture Science Program, and says it was Copps who encouraged her to attend the conference.

"I'm taking the beef cattle elective with her (Copps). At first I thought, I don't know, I'm a crop science kid, maybe this isn't my place to be, but she convinced me and I'm very glad she convinced me to because I've learned a lot here, and it's an experience I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else."

Gouw says, a highlight of the conference was the Meet the Experts Session.

"They gathered us all in this little room with producers who are on the dairy board and veterinarians, and producers themselves, and we got to have five minutes with a few of them just explaining what are goals and making some connections which are really important, especially for us students since after we are done our schooling, we're going out into the industry ourselves."

Copps and Gouw are both in the second year of their program.

 

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