The American Sheep Industry Association’s Young and Emerging Entrepreneurs group has received a grant in the amount of $89,580 from the National Sheep Industry Improvement Center to develop a beginning producer education program.
The program will incorporate online education, producer workshops and an online forum, according to Cody Chambliss and Kelly Froehlich, Ph.D., of the Young and Emerging Entrepreneurs Steering Committee.
“Cody and I started a conversation at the (ASI Annual) Convention about developing a program,” said Froehlich, who implemented a similar concept in her previous role with South Dakota State University. “We’re already developing the online curriculum, which will be open to everyone.”
“It will be very basic and mostly for beginners in the sheep industry. We don’t want it to be overwhelming,” Chambliss added. “We’re seeing a huge uptake in the number of people interested in sheep, and we want to do what we can to help them. We’ve both seen people who get into this industry, and they don’t know how to invest their resources.”
The online education module will closely follow the teachings of ASI’s Sheep Production Handbook, but in a simpler form that offers new producers a less daunting introduction to the American sheep industry.
Story from ASI.