ANKENY, Iowa — Nearly three years after leveling two former barns – one dating back to 1908 – Iowa State University officially opened its new dairy farm, which is expected to become one of the nation’s premier dairy research and teaching facilities.

“Certainly, this a momentous occasion,” said Wendy Wintersteen, dean of ISU’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences of the $14.7 million, state-of-the-art facility, which will serve as the centerpiece for the college’s 112-year old dairy program.

“So many of you (in the industry) played a big role; we didn’t achieve this miracle alone, and it is going to be great to finally bring the cows home,” she told about 200 alumni, faculty, staff and dairy farmers at the Oct. 20 grand opening of ISU’s new Dairy Science Education and Discovery Facility, to which 450 milking cows will relocate this month.

Maynard Hogberg, chair of the Department of Animal Science in the college said, “We’ve been planning a long time for this and the new farm will bring our dairy science facilities into the 21st century.”

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey told the crowd that the new farm, which began construction in 2006, would bring a significant resurgence to the state’s dairy industry, prominently showcasing opportunities for its continued growth. “When we started this project five years ago, we were losing cows in this state,” he said. “Now, we are gaining cow numbers.

“I truly believe we are enjoying a renaissance in agriculture, and the dairy industry is one of those areas enjoying a renaissance,” he said of the new dairy facility, on 27 of the nearly 900-acre complex. “We have the feedstuffs, we have smart people … and we are determined to grow the dairy industry in this state.”

Erin Vagts, industry relations manager for the Iowa State Dairy Assoc. (ISDA), said the ISDA “is excited to have such a great dairy in Iowa,” and looks forward to the “excellent research and future dairy leaders which will come out of this educational facility.

“The goal of the new dairy is to be self-sufficient, while at the same time creating opportunities for research and hands-on education,” she said. “The opportunity for dairy research will not only benefit Iowa’s dairy producers, but producers everywhere; a great staff with a great facility will produce amazing research.”

Vagts said the experience ISU students will gain from learning at the new dairy is immeasurable, and the new farm will put Iowa on the map.

“We have a diverse, growing dairy industry in our state, and this facility adds to that growth and excitement,” she said. “By putting their time and effort into a project of this size, it truly shows Iowa State’s dedication and commitment to the entire dairy industry, and especially to Iowa’s dairy.”

The planning began in 2002 when ISU officials decided to close the nearly 100-year-old dairy farm in 2003 due to severe budget cuts and the barn’s deteriorating condition. It was also in 2002 when the Iowa legislature approved the sale of the old Ankeny dairy farm, acquiring about $23 million from the sale of the two dairy barns, which once housed a munitions plant during World War II.

Located three miles south of Ames on 887 acres in rural Ankeny, the new farm has four heifer barns, a double-12 milking parlor, a barn with 456 free stalls for lactating cows, a hospital/special needs area and a student classroom. Hogberg added that dairy research at the new facility will emphasize nutrition, genetics and breeding, health issues and herd management.

“Extension and outreach will target producers, schoolchildren and visitors who want to learn more about modern animal agriculture,” he said. “The new facility also will greatly enhance our ability to recruit the best students into agricultural career fields.”

The farm’s main structures include a visitor’s center with a public viewing area of the milking parlor, classrooms and meeting rooms, computerized feeding stations for teaching and research, a dry cow/transition barn housing cows preparing to calve, a maternity barn which will focus on newborn calf care and a calf research barn to house growing calves and provide for nutritional and husbandry research.

The new dairy complex also includes two heifer barns to accommodate young cows, a metabolism barn to provide an isolated facility for metabolism and nutritional research, separate barns to house animals in different phases of their production cycle – from dry cows to lactation – and a residence that will be built for the manager to live on-site.

Howard Tyler, ISU associate professor of animal science, said the new dairy farm has unique features that separate it from the nation’s other research and education facilities, which researchers want to quickly expand to 1,100 cows. According to Tyler, each barn will use Calan feed bunks, which electronically monitor the feed intake of individual cows, where ISU researchers will study how genetics could impact feed-intake levels.

“I don’t know any other place in the country that has Calan bunks throughout the facility,” he said of the facility, which will sell its milk to Swiss Valley Farms, providing additional funds to meet continued operating costs.

He added that the dairy research and education facility is already helping recruit faculty and staff from far and wide to ISU. Leo Timms, the extension dairy specialist who led most of the construction effort, said the new complex will provide “a dairy farm and facility for Iowa and the world.

“The new facility will allow us to integrate teaching, research and extension with a commercial farm flavor,” he said. “It provides state-of-the-art training grounds for students and future dairy leaders, much greater flexibility and possibilities for both applied and basic research and a great place for training and demonstrations for the dairy industry.”

Lorilee Schultz, president of the ISU Dairy Science Club, said the most exciting thing is the farm’s implication about the future of ISU dairy students.

“As many of us prepare to enter careers in the industry, it is promising and encouraging to see so much support for continued research and education in this field,” she said at the grand opening. “That commitment lets us know that the future of dairy is brighter than ever.”

According to ISDA, while Iowa is the nation’s leading egg producer, the state ranks 12th in the nation in milk production, sixth in American cheese production and fourth in ice cream production. Last year, however, Iowa dairy farmers produced 4.1 billion pounds of milk, with the average cow milking 20,146 pounds.

Home to more than 2,000 dairy cow farms, Iowa also has 125 dairy goat farms and provides more than 26,000 jobs on dairy farms, with dairy processors and other services that benefit and aid the dairy industry, which annually contributes in excess of $1.5 billion to the state’s economy.

To date, Des Moines, Iowa, is the number-one city in the nation, per capita, in the consumption of milk.