New course at the Aragon School of Shepherding

Source: RFEAGAS

Registration will remain open until Sunday, February 1st, and there are a total of 10 places available.

A new course will begin on February 24th at La Estiva, the only shepherding school in Aragon. In its five years of operation, the school has already trained more than 50 shepherds at its headquarters in San Juan de Plan. The Huesca Provincial Council, the project's main funder since its inception after the pandemic, continues to provide crucial support for its development. This support helps students access intensive training with placements and appropriate logistical support, with the aim of "strengthening generational renewal, professionalizing the sector, and boosting the economic activity linked to extensive livestock farming, with a direct impact on the area, the landscape, and life in the Chistau Valley," explains José Cebollero, head of the Development Department.

Registration will remain open until Sunday, February 1st, and there are a total of 10 places available. The course will run until September 4th, 2026, for a total of 860 hours, divided into 520 hours of theory and practice with practical experience on livestock farms and 340 hours of practical experience in mountainous terrain and livestock handling in mountain pastures, all supervised by professionals in the sector.

The training content is structured as a career guidance program: it integrates everything from cattle, sheep, and goat management, animal welfare, and health control (for example, vaccination programs, antiparasitic treatments, and farm record keeping), to high-mountain grazing with specific tools such as map reading, orientation and meteorology, silvopastoral systems, and dog training. It also incorporates the business aspect, covering procedures for opening a farm, economic viability, CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) and subsidies, and marketing; it includes a module on pastoral culture (pasture management, crafts, and resource utilization) and another on dairy processing, with applied content such as milking, milk and cheese production, and artisanal cheesemaking (equipment and regulations), as well as social skills and equality training, focused on communication and conflict resolution in rural areas.

The profile of the candidates is diverse: students with prior experience in the sector coexist with others who come from different backgrounds but share a clear vocation and a desire to learn a trade with promising career prospects. Also noteworthy is the increasing number of young people joining the program, in a context where generational renewal is one of the major challenges facing extensive livestock farming, and the positive evolution of the gender profile, with a growing presence of women interested in training and working in the sector.