Plans for a sustainable agriculture teaching program, unique to North America, has been bumped to the spring of 2012.
The four-year degree program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond, originally thought to launch this fall, has had its target start date bumped back a semester to spring, with final ministry approval expected soon.
Kwantlen's Dr. Kent Mullinix has modeled the program in part after other successful agricultural ventures, including the Richmond Farm School, which he directs.
Agricultural studies at Washington State University, Evergreen State College and a number of land grant programs in the USA were taken into account when creating the program, which places particular emphasis on small-scale and direct market agriculture.
"We're not alone, and we're not shooting in the dark by any means, but this will be North America's first full degree program emphasizing this aspect of the food system," said Mullinix.
His program development has cleared the school's senate and board of governors approval process and now awaits a final nod from the office of the Minister of Advanced Education.
After that, the school will look to line up faculty and students, and to make official plans for the home for the experiential learning work that is fundamental to the concept.
The Garden City lands has been considered as a potential location for the classrooms - with 55 hectares, it could make a good site for the program's soonto-come laboratory, teaching farm and orchard.
Richmond city councillor Harold Steves was supportive of the idea when it was posed last year around the time the city purchased the land from the Musqueam First Nation and Canada Land Corp for $60 million.
City council has yet to decide on the land's usage, but it is locked in the Agricultural Land Reserve.
Mullinix envisions a wide draw for the one-of-a-kind program. There will be a maximum number of students eligible to register each year - likely between 50 and 100 - and interest may reach beyond B.C. to students across North America and the world.
The focus on local regional food systems, he believes, is necessary for worldwide growth and progress.
"By seeing the devastation that the global agricultural food system was wreaking on the family farm, I really was spurred by my desire to promote familybased agriculture as a critical element of a sustainable food system," he said. "I still today believe that is fundamentally critical. We need to advance a broader agrarianism in everybody."
