The University of New Hampshire is on the verge of giving a boost to the organic food movement.
It's setting up a new dairy not far from the main campus in Durham to conduct research and to teach organic farming methods.
It is believed to be the first such teaching dairy at a US land-grant university.
NHPR Correspondent Hilary McQuilkin has more.
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In a barn at the University of New Hampshire’s dairy, Rachel Silly points to a metal corral where a large black and white Holstein cow munches on feed.
CLIP1[My cow that I’m in charge of is number 241 or peaches we’re having a clean cow contest today, to see has the cleanest cow. I’ll have to come back after lab, brush her out, make sure she is real looks nice.]
Silly is one of 17 students in the CREAM class at the University of New Hampshire.
CREAM is an acronym for cooperative for real education and agricultural management.
Dairy research and education has been a part of UNH since the late 1800s.
In 1992 the university officially launched a Bachelor of Science degree in Dairy Management.
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In Lee … about 8 miles from the conventional dairy … the university is setting up what could be a milestone in the organic food movement.
It's the first organic dairy at a land-grant university
William Trumble is Dean of UNH’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture.
CLIP2 [You can see this land is very different than around the university if you go down here it dips down and rolls up high. This is great grazing land, it’s dry when it’s wet, it’ll be wet when it’s dry, there is forest to let the animals get out of the sun. It’s a great property to have a grazing dairy herd.]
Standing at the edge of a large field are 48 Jersey heifers.
They are smaller and will produce less milk then the Holsteins back at the conventional dairy.
They are, however, considered hardier, more resistant to disease.
And disease - such as mastitis – is of great concern to all dairy farmers, but especially to organic operations … because they aren’t allowed to use antibiotics or other conventional treatments.
Anna Pape, a senior in the school's dairy management department, says she looks forward to learning more about the health of the organic herd.
CLIP3 [I’m interested in the organic approach of more preventative medicine rather than just treating the disease when it comes.]
UNH is only in the beginning stages of this project.
They still have to build the milking parlor, breed the heifers, and finish raising the money.
Of the $1.5 million they need to raise, UNH has a little over $250,000.
Dr. Charles Schwabb teaches animal and nutritional science.
He says the research and education they plan to conduct will be important for small farms, especially those in New England.
[It goes beyond organic. It is an effort to come back to more sustainable farming practices that we believe are in fact better for the environment and better for the consumer in the long run. …. This is important for New England agriculture, North east agriculture, upper Midwest agriculture, where farms are smaller, ,,,This will give an opportunity to bring farming back to parts of the country where farming has disappeared.]
Although the milking process will be virtually the same at the organic dairy as at the conventional dairy, many other aspects will differ.
Kevin Brussell manages the organic dairy.
CLIP5 [The barn for the winter will be very different. The barn will be a composting bed and pack. There will be some benefits and cow comfort. You don’t have to have liquid manure management which is very expensive and it has to be maintained with then environment. We’ll just use a bedding system, let it compost and build over the winter and hauled into fields in the spring.]
The cows will also be allowed to graze on some of the farm’s 200 acres of certified organic land.
When the weather doesn’t permit grazing, the cows will eat organic feed.
Ed Maltby is the coordinator for the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.
He hopes the research from UNH will go beyond just helping today’s organic farmers.
CLIP6 [What we also hope they’ll be able to do at UNH is provide us info so we can go back, here are statistics, organic dairy farmers need this much return in order to make a viable living and not just for themselves, but also to encourage their children to follow in their footsteps
Maltby, says that a study in 2004 showed that organic dairy farmers didn't make as much as conventional dairy farmers.
In part because the cost of organic feed is extremely high.
In some cases twice as much as conventional feed.
The cost is high because the demand nationwide is growing, essentially outpacing the production from US certified organic land.
Importers are shipping Organic feed such as soybeans - from South America and China.
But American agribusiness is beginning to pay attention to this new market.
And Cargill, one of the nations largest conventional feed suppliers, wants a piece of it.
A few months ago Cargill began distributing organic feed.
Mike Jerrod is Dairy Brand Manager at Cargill headquarters in Minneapolis.
CLIP8 [I guess one of the main reasons we’re looking at this is demand from customers. We do have some customers moving into organic production and other dairy producers that are in that production system today and with that they have some needs and we’re just looking to meet the needs of our customers.]
At Iowa State – another land-grant university – Howard Tyler is associate professor of Dairy.
He commends UNH for their organic venture.
But other than including some organic dairying practices in their conventional curriculum, Iowa State will not be following UNH’s lead.
Tyler calls organic dairy farms a niche market.
CLIP10 [That’s how we’ve always looked at it in class. I say it’s just like the corner hardware store and mom and pop grocery and someone builds a super Walmart down the street. You’re not going to out price them, you better find a way to justify your higher prices and create a niche where people will still buy.]
And Dan Gallop, a UNH senior in Dairy Management agrees.
He doesn’t see the organic farming in his future.
CLIP11 [I want to move out West and out there everything is big. Organic is more centered around smaller herd numbers and populated areas, so for me organic is really not what I’d like to go into now. It’s interesting and takes more skill, but it’s just not what I’d like to do.]
But classmate Kim Morrell sees things differently.
CLIP12 [Getting the organic farm will help because the students here and myself will have the avenue to learn about organic dairy and if we want to turn our herds into organic, we’ll have the option. It will also help us when we graduate when we go into industry to know what goes into organic and we can promote it in the industry if people are interested.]
UNH plans to involve the whole region in their organic undertaking.
Dean William Trumble.
CLIP14 We just have the opportunity. We want to share it. This spring we’ll start a regional research project. A lot of other universities will be invited to join us with research; the growing of feed, animal health, the quality of product and nutritional benefits. There is an awful lot that hasn’t been done yet. We’re going to open this up and invite others to join us.]
The organic dairy will in no way replace the conventional one,
It will continue to operate for both education and research.
And, although students will be involved with the breeding and management of the organic herd during the upcoming spring and summer, the farm's dairy won’t begin producing organic milk until December of 2006.
For NHPR I’m Hilary McQuilkin
