DURHAM, N.H. - University of New Hampshire students enrolled in the Cooperative Real Education in Agricultural Management (CREAM) course will host an open house at the UNH Thomas P. Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 3, 2014.

The public is invited to learn more about the UNH Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center, a facility of the NH Agricultural Experiment Station in the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, by taking guided and self-guided tours as well as attending talks by a guest speaker and a milking demonstration, and enjoying food, games, and crafts. The open house is free and open to the public, and lunch will be available.

CREAM is a student-run cooperative in which 25 to 30 UNH students, with the help of advisors, operate and manage a small business - a herd of 25 to 30 registered Holstein dairy cattle. Students milk, feed, and care for the herd every day of the school year, and also do outreach activities for the college and general public.

CREAM provides UNH animal science, dairy management and pre-veterinary students, as well as students in the UNH Thompson School of Applied Science, plus students from other majors, with a hand's-on learning model that helps them understand:

• The applications of science to the management of a dairy herd.
• How to work with other team members in a cooperative venture.
• The work and decision-making skills required in production agriculture.
• How to manage and operate a small business.

"Students take the course to work with the cows, but soon realize the course is as much about management and working with people, as it is about cows," says Drew Conroy, CREAM advisor and professor of applied animal science at the Thompson School of Applied Science. 

"After the first six weeks, students are largely self-directed in CREAM. This year's CREAM class is interested in outreach and teaching others about agriculture in addition to everything else they do in the course. Come see what you can learn," Conroy says.

The UNH Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center serves to help NH Agricultural Experiment Station researchers develop new knowledge and management expertise geared directly to state and regional stakeholders. It houses about 90 milking-age cows and approximately 70 growing animals, including the CREAM herd. The center's primary research area is dairy nutrition and reproductive biology.

Founded in 1877, the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture is an elemental component of New Hampshire's land-grant university heritage and mission, since before UNH was located in Durham. We steward federal and state funding to provide unbiased and objective research concerning diverse aspects of sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, forest management, and related wildlife and natural resources. We maintain the Woodman and Kingman agronomy and horticultural farms, the Macfarlane Greenhouses, the Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center, and the Organic Dairy Research Farm. Additional properties also provide forage, forests and woodlands in direct support to research, teaching, and outreach.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,300 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.

VIDEO
Take a tour of UNH's Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center, a NH Agricultural Experiment Station facility in the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUXm8CID51Y

PHOTO
https://colsa.unh.edu/sites/colsa.unh.edu/files/images/CREAM-2014.JPG
CREAM is a student-run cooperative in which 25 to 30 UNH students, with the help of advisors, operate and manage a small business-a herd of 25 to 30 registered Holstein dairy cattle. Students milk, feed and care for the herd every day of the school year, and also do some outreach activities for the college and general public.

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