ES Cropconsult, Lower Mainland, BC
As a junior co-op student I was hired as a potato scout for E.S. Cropconsult, an environmental consulting company. My work involved monitoring the presence of insects and pathogens in agricultural crops, and using that information to provide spray recommendations to growers. This allowed the growers to make more informed decisions about the application of pesticides, rather than following a fixed spray schedule, ultimately helping to curb the overuse of pesticides. My role in the company involved going around to the different fields and searching through them for pests. Almost our entire day was spent outside in the field, which to me was very preferable to office-based work. I derived a real sense of accomplishment from my job through the knowledge that what I was doing was actually making a difference on a key environmental issue. Through the course of my work term I learned many valuable skills and thoroughly enjoyed my time with ES Cropconsult!
