LINCOLN, NEB. — Earlier this week, the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture (NCTA) announced it received a $644,489 grant from the US Department of Agriculture to provide targeted curriculum to train potential and current employees for meat processing in Nebraska.

NCTA will work with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s (UNL) Department of Animal Science to develop the programs along with the private sector employers. The initiative will be used for training at the NCTA meat laboratory in Curtis, Neb., and UNL Loeffel Meat Laboratory in Lincoln, Neb.

Once people complete the training, they will receive certification recognized by the Nebraska Association of Meat Processors. The curriculum plans to help individuals see the various career options in the industry and help current employees enhance their skills.

“A well-developed program will not only increase the skill set of individuals coming with little background, but we believe it will also have a profound improvement in retention, worker satisfaction and safety,” said Larry Gossen, dean of NCTA.

During August 2022, NCTA hosted UNL faculty and 28 private sector representatives to examine the training difficulties in meat processing. From those meetings, NCTA and others identified short courses that should be developed like meat cutting, knife handling, safety and sanitary animal handling.

“Industry emphasized that it would go a long way if potential hires had a baseline understanding of the industry and potential job paths before they started their employment, along with some preliminary training in essential skills,” Gossen said. “For plants both large and small, such a program would alleviate some of the initial burden of training and would help them better fit applicants to a position where they would be successful.”

The project noted that the training materials would be in both English and Spanish. The research for the initiative was supported by the intramural research program of the USDA, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Competitive Grants Program Education and Workforce Development Program.