The Development and Implementation of the Wyoming County Dairy Institute
Article By: W.
Maddison, Executive Director of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Wyoming
County
Wyoming
County can boast of the fact that it ranks first in the Empire State in
dairy production. The average herd size of our dairy operations is ever
increasing. This larger herd size brings with it the demand for a skilled
and dedicated work force. ‘To keep the existing work force abreast
of the ever changing technologies while simultaneously attracting an emerging
local work force’ was identified as a barrier to the future success
of our dairy operations in the county. This issue was initially addressed
in 2001 when the Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce and the Wyoming County
Board of Supervisors empowered an ad hoc committee to explore future trends
for economic development within the county. One of the suggestions from
this “Target Tomorrow” committee was for the development and
implementation of an education/research center that would focus on work
force development and other training initiatives for the large dairy and
agriculture industries that flourished within the boundaries of this county.
It was the work of this committee that fostered the concept of an institute/center that could provide work force development and emerging work force training programs. With the multiplicity of skillsneeded and the scope of the agriculture industry in Wyoming County, it would take a collaborative effort to get this project going and maintained. This initiative would have to be linked to a major land grant university and its outreach sector such as Cornell Cooperative Extension. Other local organizations with similar mission statements would hopefully see the value in this concept and join forces in a way that would benefit all involved. At present, the institutions which are collaborating in this educational initiative are Alfred State College, Quality Milk Production Services, Genesee Community College, and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Wyoming County.
A significant advantage of forming this collaborative effort was that not one individual organization by itself could handle the work load or technical expertise it would require to organize, market and maintain the needed man hours. The sheer diversity of skills needed to teach across the curriculum would necessitate a multitude of teaching faculty to get this concept fully implemented.
After numerous meetings and grant requests, it was decided that a phased-in approach and taking a “walk before you run” attitude prevailed. These initial meetings led to the concept of forming the “Wyoming County Dairy Institute”.
The target audience for this program would be farm workers, youth and any individuals interested in entering the dairy industry or enhancing current skill level.
Additionally, with the county being so rich in intellectual capital in
all aspects of the dairy industry, it seemed a logical place to house
such an initiative. This range of intellectual capital includes veterinarians,
dairy consultants, crop consultants, dairy equipment experts, dairy business
managers and a wealth of farm managers who possess years of experience
and success stories. History tells us learning from the best greatly diminishes
the slope of the learning curve. Individuals recruited from these institutions,
local veterinary clinics and agri-service companies to teach these dairy
modules are of the highest quality in the nation. Some of the brightest
and best in the dairy industry reside in and around Wyoming County. It
only makes sense to capitalize on this know-ledge and pass it on to current
and future employees and stakeholders in the dairy industry.
This article was originally printed in a Special Edition
of the Farm News of Wyoming County, August 2007. To download the entire
issue, click
here. (This is a big file, so I recommend that you right click on
the link and choose "Save Target As..." and save the file to
your computer before opening it.)
Click
Here To Download the Special Edition of the Farm News
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A Wyoming County Dairy Institute press conference was held in January of 2007 to discuss the implementation of the new dairy institute. (Front-L to R) Rebecca Ireland-Perry, Wyoming Co. CCE Educator; Dr. Dorothea Fitzsimmons, DVM, Alfred State; Kitty Dziedzic, Wyoming Co. Producer; Dr. Hal Schulte, DVM, Quality Milk Production Services (Back-L to R) William Maddison, Wyoming Co. CCE Executive Director; Douglas Berwanger, Wyoming Co. Board of Supervisors Chairman; Russ Miller, Wyoming Co. Producer, Bruce Tillapaugh, Wyoming Co. CCE Educator; David Bojanowski, Wyoming Co. CCE Board President |