Leadership Chair in Sheep Production

Partners include: the Centre d’expertise en production ovine du Québec (CEPOQ), the Fédération des producteurs d’agneaux et moutons du Québec, the Société des éleveurs de moutons de race pure du Québec, the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The agri-food industry is rapidly evolving in Quebec, and the animal production sector is no exception. Today, given the enormous investments in capital required, the major fields of production (dairy, swine, poultry) are largely inaccessible to new agricultural entrepreneurs. Sheep farming is seen as one of the interesting alternative solutions for these fields of production. In Canada and Quebec, the total consumption of lamb meat continues to increase. Owing to its market potential and its greater financial accessibility, sheep production is a real choice for future agricultural producers. However, despite appearances, this type of production is very technical, requiring an advanced level of agronomic knowledge and state-of-the-art production methods in order to ensure a company's profitability and survival. Training in sheep production is therefore becoming a key element for all actors in this industry.

The objective of this Chair is to promote and support teaching and training in the sheep production sector to improve livestock production and thereby increase profitability and ensure sustainability for the industry.
Two training components will be developed with the goal of increasing the knowledge of actors in the sector:

Theme 1 Developing the skills of the next generation of students

• Train undergraduate agricultural economics students to provide consulting services to sheep production enterprises
• Stimulate the training of graduate students, key players in the development and advancement of the sheep industry, both in regards to the results of their research and their scientific skills
• Encourage the completion of expertise and knowledge-sharing projects in all sectors of sheep production

Theme 2 Developing the skills of actors in the sector through continuous professional development

• Implement training activities for different participants in the sheep sector who are already on the labour market: agronomists, veterinarians, technicians, producers, etc.
• Develop distance-learning activities in order to take the clientele's constraints into account