Legacy Farm Project announces MoU updates

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Legacy Farm Project is excited to announce the completion of their educational forums and memorandums of understanding regarding their community efforts into local education and tourism.

“The memorandums of understanding are Part 1 of a two-part process and getting into formal agreements, or working agreements with our different partners,” said Scott Silva, director of business development for the Legacy Farm Project. “The first … and principal memorandum of understanding is with the Western District Historical Society. What we are in effect doing, is looking at having the Western District Historical Society be the stewards of the historical barn site, which is roughly a 12-acre site.”

That site, Silva explained, will have been in effect, donated to the Western District Historical Society through a lease or via other legal means in order to always remain a community initiative, community hub, and regional focus for agriculture tourism.

From there, the Legacy Farm Project’s memorandums of understanding extend to a host of different tenants within the new proposed barn, as well as throughout the educational component of the project.

“As part of the dream from Bruce Klaiber, throughout this entire process was to be able to create an advanced institute of agriculture,” said Silva. “Our memorandums of understanding have started with everybody from Golden Hills School Division, Christ the Redeemer, Olds College, and now we are working with several other colleges and other regional school boards, including moving into the Calgary area to ultimately create a program, or educational programming where teachers, and students K to 12 and post-secondary alike can come down and utilize the space, the environment, and the features of the historical legacy barn.”

Sila added the curriculums available through the Legacy Farm Project aim to encompass history and social studies, all the way to practical farming and agricultural practices. 

This ultimately aims to lead to further research and development through the facility for contemporary agricultural advancement. 

“Our corporate sponsors are also where we have memorandums of understanding. These sponsors relate to everybody from agricultural inputs and farming practices … but a lot of these corporate partnerships are also looking for recruitment,” said Silva. “They want to be able to have an active supply of potential workers who want to move into their respective fields, so by creating this educational component within the Legacy Farm, we are not only satisfying our regional demands, but we are also creating a potential labour pool for these future corporate sponsors.”

More information regarding developments about the Legacy Farm Project is available via their website.