WINONA LAKE, Ind. – A private Indiana learning institution is taking aim at solving problems in the agriculture community and providing work opportunities related to the field for its students.

Grace College is adding a Center for Agriculture to the farming-related degree programs it began offering in 2017.

Nate Bosch, director of the faith-based college, said the agriculture center will research and find answers to challenges experienced by local farmers and other food producers.

The plan includes students doing internships at agriculture-related companies to enhance their learning experience and filling job openings related to their studies after receiving their degrees.

“It’s definitely a brain gain when we can bring students in from around the Midwest and we can equip them well and send them out in this region and do great work in agriculture,” he said.

Bosch said existing space in the Dane A. Miller Science Complex is being used to create the agriculture center prior to the start of the fall semester.

Currently, the school – in the north central part of the state – offers four-year degrees in Ag Business and General Agriculture along with a two-year degree in Ag Business.

“They’re meant to get students ready to work in a large ag corporation all the way down to a small entrepreneurial ag enterprise with just a few people,” he said.

Bosch said the model for success of the ag center was developed from the positive results of the school’s Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, which offers educational programs and research to help protect the numerous of bodies of water in the area.

The Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams partners with various stakeholders to make sure the lakes are also well utilized in an area where tourism, along with agriculture, are major economic drivers.

“We want to do the same thing for agriculture,” he said.

The ag center will also position the college to help producers remain profitable while still being friendly to the environment.

The school, with about 1,600 students, has had more than 20 students complete agriculture program.

Initially, the ag center will occupy 600 square feet of vacated office space.

Bosch said the strategy is growing the ag center in the same manner used to expand the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams from its humble beginnings to 13,000 square feet of space. He said extra room for the ag center would probably come from constructing a new structure or adding onto an existing building.

“We’re following the same play book,” he said.

Bosch said the agriculture degree program was in response to demand expressed by parents and their children in FFA classes in high school who prefer a small, Christian-oriented college to further their studies in the field.

“They’ve got kids in the family farming business and they want their kids to be educated in agriculture but maybe stay a little closer to home or maybe stick with their family’s values with a faith-based education,” he said.

The local agriculture community also had a major voice in the program being established to meet a need for more expertise and leadership.

Grace College, established in 1948, is in Kosciusko County, which has agriculture related stakeholders ranging from traditional row crop and dairy farmers to producers of beef, chickens, eggs and ducks.

“It’s a pretty amazing ag industry here within the 30-mile radius of our campus.  It’s a very ripe deal for Grace College to be able to move into and be able to serve,” he said.

The Center for Agriculture is still looking for a director and program coordinator.

“This center is going to take these programs to the next level, leveraging Grace’s location in northern Indiana with major ag producers in all directions to serve the community and provide a quality, faith-based agricultural education for our students. We are praying that God will provide a leader to oversee this exciting initiative,” said Dr. John Teevan, interim president at Grace College.