By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
CHATHAM, Mich. — The Upper Peninsula Experiment Station (UPES) dairy herd will be eliminated this summer because of budget cuts.
The UPES, which is a part of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES) and Michigan State University (MSU), hasn’t been using the herd for research lately and no research with the herd was being planned, according to MSU officials.

The herd, which has been at the UPES since 1912, will probably be sold off this summer.

These latest plans for the herd coincide with the retirement of one MSU researcher who has used the herd in the past, according to John Baker, associate director of the MAES.

“The ultimate decision to close that herd was a programmatic decision,” Baker said. “There was no planned research for that herd. It was a budgetary decision, also. The budget situation sometimes stimulates you to make a decision. This should not be viewed in any way as MSU abandoning the dairy industry in the Upper Peninsula. We have two other research herds. That research will continue to go on.”

That research will include milk production issues, nutrition, animal husbandry, as well as animal welfare. There are 15 experiment field stations in the state altogether. Three of those have dairy herds, including Chatham. The other two are in Hickory Corners and on the main campus in East Lansing.

Other problems with the continued use of the herd in Chatham include its distance from the main MSU campus and the small size of the herd: there are 70 milk cows. The small number of animals makes it harder to do statistically relevant research there. On the other hand, there is a crop scientist who lives at the station who can oversee crop-related research that’s being conducted by faculty that are located on the main campus.

The MAES and Cooperative Extension Service, both part of MSU, have recently been funded at $60 million altogether. Last year Gov. Jennifer Granholm proposed cutting that funding in half. On the books, that’s basically what happened; however, the federal government came in and bailed them out this time.

“They reduced our budget by 46 percent,” Baker said. “They then took stimulus dollars and made it up with federal money. Our concern is, what’s our base budget going to be?”

Baker said he is encouraged by recent meetings in the state legislature regarding the budget.

“We’re very pleased that the legislature did not look at us and say, your budget is going to be 46 percent of what it used to be.”
Baker said that MAES is probably going to be cut by 17 percent altogether over a four year period, with a 3 percent cut occurring starting with next year’s budget. He said that layoffs will be a part of the cuts. MSU as a whole will probably experience a budget cut of 20 percent over a three-year period. He warned that the cuts to agriculture related programs at MSU will affect the entire state, not just the university; and that dairy research is important to the state because milk is the state’s largest commodity.

Several agriculture related academic programs at MSU are also being recommended for elimination, including a master’s degree in agribusiness.