Four Portage Collegiate students took part in an agriculture internship program offered this year.

It's a pilot project for the school, to highlight employment opportunities in the ag sector for graduating students. They spent one day a week, for seven weeks, at a local ag business.

One of those students is Lindsay Verwey, who's headed for the University of Manitoba in the fall. She thinks it'll help her decide which area of ag she wants to study.

"I've gotten to see not just on-the-farm operations. We've gone Syngenta and PAMI, and places like that where it's just a little bit different, but you're still involved in ag."

MacKenzie Miller will also study ag at university this fall. She believes the internship's something that will benefit other students.

"It just teaches you so many valuable skills that you can't learn in a classroom. So it's definitely real-life things that are there."

Evan Trimble won't be at university for a year, and reflects on his intern experience, after growing up on a beef farm.

"So I didn't really get to learn all of the seeding stuff, and after I did, I (found) this is more what I like to do. I've got to experience through high school, so I might lean that way now."

Kaitlyn Davey also doesn't graduate for a year. She's enthusiastic about the program.

"It was just a great experience. It really opened by eyes to how much there was in the ag industry. I didn't think there was this much, but it was just great. The people were great -- it was just so much fun."

Career Development Coordinator Blair Hordeski says the project's a good fit because Portage is an agricultural community.

Blair Hordeski

"There are employment opportunities for people. There are partnershipps that we're building with the ag community. And they want the best, and they want the skilled candidates to be part of their teams."

Tara-Lee SimpsonMunro Farm Supplies was one of the businesses involved, and Tara-Lee Simpson says they did that because it's becoming difficult for agricultural employees.

"Agriculture's important to us, it's important to Portage, and we're just trying to encourage students to head into agriculture so that we have more people to choose from to come and work for us."

Here are some pictures from the students' internship.