‘Farm of the Future’ Showcased at Cornell PRO-DAIRY Celebration

By Caitlin Hayes

Fifteen miles southeast of Cornell’s Ithaca campus, in a sprawling valley surrounded by wooded hills, a Cornell-operated, commercial-scale dairy farm resembles many across New York state. Adjacent to manure and feed storage, two large, red barns house 570 milking cows, all of it encircled by crop fields.

But look closely, and you can see that the Cornell University Ruminant Center (CURC) isn’t a standard dairy farm – that on top of the work of managing the farm, a vast number of questions are being asked and answered. Cameras and sensors are affixed to the barns’ rafters. Cows wear collars adorned with sensors. A long line of feeding bins are labeled with project numbers. There’s evidence that researchers are studying every piece of the dairy farm system, from cows’ diet and reproduction to manure management to growing the crops that feed the cows.

Cornell faculty, staff and industry partners say CURC, in the township of Harford, New York, is a one-of-a-kind testbed for new technologies and strategies that, since its construction in 2013, has been crucial to helping New York state dairy farmers improve processes, profits and environmental stewardship.

“Today shows me that integrated system that we have in New York state, starting first and foremost with Cornell,” said Katie Howard, deputy commissioner for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, at a June 30 event showcasing CURC and the research and extension associated with it. “The relationship between the state and Cornell, and with industry, our processors, our producers, and the research that’s being done here – that’s really the envy of the country.”

The daylong event, which began with presentations at Hopshire Farm and Brewery and ended with a tour of CURC, was attended by more than 60 industry leaders and Cornell faculty and staff associated with CURC and PRO-DAIRY, an applied research and extension program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) that has supported the New York state dairy industry since 1988. The aim was to update the community on recent advances and new projects, celebrate accomplishments and take stock of available resources and needs at a time of uncertainty in the future of federal and state funding. The meeting is part of a larger effort by PRO-DAIRY to make the myriad efforts of Cornell extension associates and researchers more tangible for stakeholders.

“It’s really to help illustrate to those who are involved the comprehensive nature of how we support the industry,” said Thomas Overton, director of PRO-DAIRY and professor of animal science (CALS). “We have PRO-DAIRY but also a variety of other research programs that feed into that. It’s an ecosystem where we’re all interacting and looking at innovation in all areas of farm management.”