Workshops, Seminars and Conferences
Where researchers, technicians, students and farmers put the season's work in front of each other and argue about it.
Work that is never argued with does not improve.
The university holds three kinds of meeting. Workshops are working sessions — staff and partner technicians sit down over a specific problem or a specific programme and leave with something decided. Seminars are where a piece of research is presented and questioned, method first. Conferences bring the province's agricultural institutions, the government agencies and the partner universities into one room.
The review workshop at the end of a season is the one that matters most to the programme. Trials, demonstrations and training are gone through in turn — what worked, what did not, what the farmers said about it — and the next season's plan is built out of that rather than out of last year's plan.
Students present as well: a departmental seminar is usually where a thesis first meets an audience that asks about the method rather than the conclusion. Papers, proceedings and the recommendations a meeting agrees on are published through the notice board, so that what a room decided does not stay in the room.
Seasonal review workshop
The season's trials, demonstrations and training gone through before the next plan is written.
Research seminars
Findings presented to an audience that questions the method first.
Conferences and joint meets
With government agencies, partner universities and provincial institutions.
Student seminars
Thesis and project work presented within the department.