Latvia University of Agriculture - Latvijas Lauksaimniecības ...

Z. Gaile Development of the Research and Study Farm “Vecauce”E. Bērziņš. As a result, completely new activities at “Vecauce” started in 1998 when thestudy course “Practical Agriculture” in the amount of 1 credit point was included intothe 1st-year curricula of all faculties, and the course was accomplished at “Vecauce”.The Training centre “Vecauce” was established under the guidance of the vice director,docent Dr.agr. I. Rūvalds who administered the centre and the study course “PracticalAgriculture” until his sudden death on 22 September 2008. The aim of the study courseuntil now is to introduce students to practical farming. “Practical Agriculture” providesinsight into:– operation activities and problems of a many-branched agricultural enterprise;– technological processes of production;– interrelation of different production branches;– interrelation between one agriculture production enterprise (“Vecauce”) andanother;– prosaic side of the rural life in general.The course “Practical Agriculture” also helps students, who have chosen LLU for theirstudies and have arrived from villages, towns or Riga, comprehend what is agriculture,what and why people are doing in the countryside. Students are taught to be toleranttowards agriculture and to understand that the borderline of Latvia does not coincidewith the borderline of Riga or any other town. During ten academic years, from 679(in 2004/2005) to 928 (in 2002/2003) students per year have been studying this studycourse (Fig. 3). The number of students does not depend on the work of the Trainingcentre, but on matriculation at LLU and on the quality of students – the number ofstudents is dependent on university dropouts during the 1st year.For one week the work is divided into lectures (in an auditorium of the Trainingcentre) and practical training in specific production facilities: cattle-sheds, fields(during the season), cereal drying, cleaning and prepacking facility, orchard (during theseason), fruit storage, mechanical workshop, woodworkers’ workshop, Vecauce Palace,bookkeepers office, etc. The program was worked out in 1998 and till today is beingimproved and developed depending on the needs of the faculties and the changes goingon at “Vecauce”. In 1998, the study course had 14 sections and still has the sameamount of sections (with minor changes in the 2008/2009 academic year). The contentNumber of students100090080070060050040030020010001998/1999928916860 908829 834 850* 9167636791999/20002000/20012001/20022002/20032003/20042004/2005Academic year2005/20062006/20072007/2008Figure 3. The number of students who studied “Practical Agriculture”at “Vecauce” during academic years from 1998/1999 to 2007/2008(* – approximate number; the exact number of studentsin the 2001/2002 academic year is lost).132 Latvia University of Agriculture – 70, 2009