The Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada (AMC) officially unveiled their mobile skills lab Tuesday at Ag in Motion.

The mobile skills lab, which is designed to encourage people to consider a career in agriculture.

Donna Boyd, the president of AMC, says it all began three years ago when they noticed the ag manufacturing industry was having challenges attracting new talent despite a boom period for the sector. AMC responded by launching a website, CareersinAg.ca, but wanted to take the next step, hence the creation of the skills lab.

It has six virtual reality stations, simulating welding, being on a combine, among other things for people to test and see for themselves whether a career in agriculture is the right fit for them. Since its a mobile unit, which already has a dedicated staff, Boyd says the plan is to have it at farm shows, like Ag in Motion, and around the province.

“What better place to be than at the 10th year of Ag in Motion to be able to be here and to launch this incredible mobile skills lab,” Boyd said after the ribbon cutting ceremony.

She says the target demographic for the lab is anyone. “We know that students that are maybe in their teens are going to be interested in coming to this, but we also know that people of all ages are going to want to know what’s going on in here exactly and ‘can I give that a try?’ And that has really been the purpose of all of the experiential learning stations that we’ve developed is to ensure that they’re engaging, they’re fun; some of them are a little bit (game-oriented) and so it has that certain appeal.”

The mobile skills lab will have several agricultural, academic partners help showcase all things agriculture.