Author: Kevin Bullock
Planning Unit: Animal and Food Sciences
Major Program: Beef
Outcome: Initial Outcome
An innovative program is providing educational programming for beginning beef farmers and educational experience for Animal and Food Sciences students at the University of Kentucky. A collaborative educational program was developed by the Animal and Food Sciences’ Beef Cattle Science instructors (Drs. Darrh Bullock, Jeff Lehmkuhler and Les Anderson), Dr. Michelle Arnold and local ANR agents (Nick Carter, Adam Probst, Brandon Sears and Tommy Yankey) to assist inexperienced beef cattle farmers by utilizing students that had just completed the Beef Cattle Science course (ASC406) at UK. The students were divided into groups of 4 and assigned a county to work with; each student was responsible for one of 4 topics – genetics, nutrition, reproduction and health. The students worked with the local agent to develop a specific targeted program that would best benefit that county, coordinate logistics and assist with advertising. The students worked with the instructors and Dr. Arnold to develop their specific presentation and an assessment tool. The students made their presentations to the targeted farmers and then fielded questions; at least one instructor and the agent was at each presentation to assist with questions that were beyond the scope of the students. Students were responsible for analyzing their specific assessment tool. This was the third year of the program and students, agents, producers and instructors have indicated that the program very impactful.