05/04/06 Latino Education Program

Latino Ag Education Program for Viticulture. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Sustaining the wine industry into the future depends on education. Not only for the vintners and growers but from the ground up. The Washington Wine Industry Foundation is partnering with other wine organizations to develop the Latino Ag Education Program for Viticulture. WWIF executive director Vicky Scharlau explains. SCHARLAU: Well the idea for a Latino Agriculture Education Program really came from the very successful Hispanic Orchard Employee Education Program that Wenatchee Valley College has had for, I think over 10 years now. We've had a greater need for taking that template of an educational program and really translating it into viticulture. The more you can translate from horticulture and viticulture into the people who are responsible for the day to day care of those vines, everybody wins. The program is being put together by Wenatchee Valley College staff members and covers everything from basic horticulture, crop management, nutrition, & pest control and how they relate to viticulture and enology. SCHARLAU: We've been working with the growers that have potential students to work out the curriculum details so we have an advisory committee that's doing that, we'll have an advisory committee for curriculum development and for how we'll set up scholarships because the class rate will be about $1500 dollars. We want to make sure these classes are open to as many potential students in the valley as we can bring in in any one quarter. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.