EAST LANSING, Mich. — Dozens of dairy cattle were on the moo-ve Monday at Michigan State University.
About 80 cows hoofed it to their new home, the Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center, a $75 million facility the East Lansing school says will allow agriculture, veterinary and other students to learn on a modern farm that’s equipped to replicate the most high-tech operations in the world.
George Smith, who heads up Michigan State’s AgBioResearch department, called it a “21st century cattle drive.” Crews erected a fence between the two buildings and herded the animals via claps, calls and whistles.
The remaining 180 cows are expected to be herded to the new building on Tuesday.
Michigan’s dairy industry leads the nation in milk production per cow, according to Smith, adding dairy also is the No. 1 contributor to the state’s agricultural economy.
The new complex is significantly larger than the existing dairy farm, which was constructed in the 1960s and was so limited in space and equipment that researchers have a backlog of up to two years on funded projects.
The existing MSU Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center currently houses 250 dairy cattle and supports the research of faculty in the colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Veterinary Medicine. The new facility features a 165,000-square-foot cattle barn that will expand research capacity by increasing herd size to 680. Those cows will arrive in batches in the coming weeks and months. The new space also includes modernized barns, feed centers, milking parlors and labs.
“Our old facility didn’t have the technical capabilities to be able to train our students for what to expect when they graduated, what dairy cattle production looks like today,” Kim Dodd, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, said Monday.
The new digs are opening at a time when other land grant universities in the agricultural Midwest are scrapping their dairy cattle teaching programs.
“While other institutions are disinvesting in dairy programs, we are investing in the future of the dairy industry in the state of Michigan, because it’s so critical to the state’s agricultural economy,” Smith said.
A $30 million investment by the State of Michigan provided the initial funding for the 18-month project, with the rest being contributed by alumni, donors and stakeholders in the dairy industry.
“Who doesn’t love ice cream,” Smith said. “Who can’t get excited about new opportunities in the field of dairy science?”