PrecisionAg.com has compiled and published a list of the 20 best community colleges for precision agriculture, with #5 West Hills College Coalinga, the only college listed from California.
Author Matt Hopkins had published a list of top 25 best universities for precision agriculture, when he realized community colleges and tech schools had developed precision agriculture programs that were “successfully thriving before many of the major universities got on board.”
He created the list of top community colleges by surveying program heads to provide a self-assessment and peer review, which included listing the schools they think have the best reputation in education, hands-on training, and graduate job placement for precision agriculture.
"We try to demonstrate and incorporate technology from the Farm into all of our courses.” said Terry Brase, Director of West Hills College Coalinga’s Farm of the Future, where the precision agriculture program is based.
The Agriculture Science Technology program at West Hills provides fundamental skills in geospatial, remote imagery, telemetry, automation, programming, and software, within five specialized courses. Application of these technologies is provided in additional production, irrigation, agronomic, and industrial ag courses using crops on the WHCC Farm of the Future.
Stacked certificates are also an important part of the department. They allow students to take technology courses as part of the Ag Science Technology degree and then “stack” on irrigation, HVAC, integrated pest management, heavy equipment, or any other certificate offered in the ag department as part of the Associate degree.
Terry Brase is the lead instructor for the technology courses and has over 25 years of experience teaching precision ag. Brase has also previously helped with the development of the precision ag programs at two other colleges listed in the top 20, including #1 Kirkwood Community College and #16 Hawkeye Community College.
You can contact the Agriculture and Industrial Science department at (559) 934-2701 or visit westhillscollege.com/coalinga
Read the full ranking at https://www.precisionag.com/service-providers/top-20-two-year-colleges-for-precision-agriculture/#Tinsel/61696/