October 4, 2019
Leaders Florida Farm Bureau’s Agriculture Education Services and Technology, AEST, collaborated with Florida Nursery, Growers, Landscape Association (FNGLA), and Florida Aquaculture Association (FAA) to host LINC 2019 in Daytona Beach Shores, September 27-29. The event was designed to ‘Link the Industry Network through Certifications’ and was successful at doing so.
Over 140 industry representatives and agricultural educators were able to network and learned best practices for a number of topics including environmental monitoring, precision agriculture practices, invasive plants, successful internship opportunities, urban agriculture, effective agriculture communication and automated aerial agriculture systems. Industry representatives from Mosaic, Foodery Farms Street-side, St. Johns River Water Management District, TPC Sawgrass, Yellowstone Landscape, Dasher Farm and many others offered workshops to educators to ensure instruction delivered in classrooms is reflective of current industry practices.
Each host organization offers industry recognized certifications aimed at providing a steady workforce for agriculture’s diverse, and ever growing, industry. By linking educators with industry professionals in a conference setting, Keitha Bennett, AEST Director, “hopes to provide teaching resources needed to ensure today’s graduates are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to fulfill tomorrow’s workforce needs and have a trusted, verifiable credential that leads to employment opportunities.”
Additional information about AEST certifications can be found at www.aest.ag/certify/. For questions, email [email protected].