Ontario youth get cutting-edge tech training in Olds, Alberta

Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum

ELMIRA — Connor Dawson, 21, works as precision agriculture specialist at Premier Equipment in Elmira. He landed the position in January with the help of his Precision Agriculture ‘Techgronomy’ (PAT) diploma earned at Olds College of Agriculture and Technology in Alberta.

Techgronomy combines the science of agronomy with practical precision agriculture technology knowledge and skills.

Raised on a cash-cropping, beef and strawberry farm, Dawson assumed he would attend the University of Guelph after graduating high school in Perth, Ontario, but decided to take a gap year when Covid shut things down. He worked on the harvest at a Grande Prairie, Alberta, farm, and then returned to Ontario to work at a fertilizer retailer before resuming his education. 

It was during his stint out west that he toured Olds College (located in the Alberta town of the same name) after his father brought the PAT program to his attention. “I thought, this is a pretty neat spot,” Dawson recalled.

He concluded that the two-year PAT program was a “better fit” over other alternatives, and the skills acquired serve him well in his job today.

“That knowledge really, really helped me to strive to look for a precision ag job when I got done,” he said.

Dawson valued the program’s breadth. “It covers like, you know, a little bit of everything really,” he said, from equipment networks to soil and crop management. He found it eye-opening “to also be able to sit down and look at … soil tests and harvest data and how to use all this to better manage your farm.” 

Two of his (PAT) classmates and fellow 2024 graduates — Patrick Daoust and Shannon Oude Egberink — similarly hail from Ontario farms and are now back in the province applying their skills and knowledge in ag-related businesses.

Olds College Technology Centre in the town of Olds (pop. 9,200), one hour north of Calgary, Alberta.

A highlight for Daoust, 23, was his 400-hour work internship at a 6,600-acre farm east of Olds. He spent the summer of 2023 setting up a new sprayer, combines, and a million-dollar automated grain bin expansion project at the operation.

Staying at the Alberta campus for an additional year, Daoust, 23, was set to return to work this spring at his family’s Stormont County dairy farm and launch a technology-driven agricultural service — a kind of ‘Geek Squad’ to help farmers debug field monitors, GPS equipment and other increasingly sophisticated equipment.

Daoust chose Olds for its technological focus, saying that no other program near home matched it. He considered Lakeland College’s dairy program in Vermilion, Alberta, but Olds’ emphasis on telematics and data processing aligned with his high school experience as a light and sound technician. “I like my cows,” admitted Daoust. But technology “was more leaning towards my wheelhouse,” he added. 

“I like tinkering on equipment and when I started here, I was kind of looking at (technology) as … kind of the future,” he said of the PAT program.

Oude Egberink, 23, and originally from an Osgoode dairy farm, works as a precision agronomist at MacEwen Agricentre  in Maxville, tailoring crop prescriptions for local farmers. 

Oude Egberink wanted to learn more about precision agriculture after pursuing her passion for agriculture by earning a three-year agronomy diploma at the University of Saskatchewan. She sought out precision agriculture jobs but discovered a need for more knowledge about the technical side of precision agriculture equipment to augment her agronomy background. She chose the two-year PAT diploma at Olds for its depth over a one-year certificate.

She found the “zone management” courses — with one part of the course load each semester — to be the most valuable. Zone management is all about using precision agriculture technology to its fullest, by breaking fields down into zones with tailored planting, fertilizer and herbicide applications based on the individual conditions measured in that zone.

“It’s looking at a field and instead of placing a blanket application, you take your high producing zones and your low producing zones, and manage it more on an acre by acre basis rather than the whole field,” explained Oude Egberink, whose role as precision agronomist sees her employ this know-how directly for clients. In her capacity as precision agronomist — a new position created for her last spring — Oude Egberink analyzes field conditions and makes custom zone-management prescriptions that clients feed into their planting, spraying and fertilizer-application monitors. She also does the same for MacEwen’s line of custom equipment for clients looking to take advantage of the extra zone-management service.

Beyond programming prescriptions and a lot of “running around” to check equipment monitors in the spring, her job involves promoting the return-on-investment benefits of zone management using precision agriculture technology. 

“There are 1,000 different ways to approach a zone management program, and I think there’s a lack of that understanding in this area,” she said. “There are a lot of farmers who just don’t even know how to approach it because there is no information on it.” 

All three Ontario grads completed internships as part of the PAT program. Oude Egberink did hers as a research assistant at Olds College’s “smart farm” while Dawson worked a summer at a 30,000-acre Saskatchewan farm. 

“They had all John Deere equipment, which I think helped to enhance my knowledge and that probably helps with the job I have now,” Dawson recalled. “To be able to help them with their technology and all their equipment, and all the different features that they were using … it was a really neat experience that summer, and I certainly learned lots.”

After graduation, Dawson parlayed his Olds experience into a 2024 position harvesting grain across the U.S. midwest with a Kansas-based custom operator.

The trio of Ontario graduates also laud the vibrant student life and the industry connections they made at Olds. Daoust joined the Red Angus judging team and volunteered at a global agriculture summit. “It’s amazing who you meet,” he said.

Oude Egberink, living off-campus, noted that “Olds College is a good time for sure” and candidly observed that one of the attractions for Ontario students is Alberta’s lower drinking age of 18. 

But  “the networking was really ‘it’ for me,” she said. “I use that networking every day. If I have a question, I’ve got a million contacts to call. It’s just nice having that network of people and I would not have had that if I didn’t go to Olds College.”

Dawson agreed. “I still talk to lots of guys who were in my class,” he said.