Foundation is ready for opportunities

On the farm, we call it resourcefulness. In business, it’s called the entrepreneurial spirit. At school it’s called discovery and collaboration, and for the College of Agriculture Foundation, it’s just what they do. Established in bleak agricultural economic times in the 1930s, the foundation’s goal has long been to promote and further agricultural education in Missouri and beyond through cooperation with MU’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.

“The foundation has been around for a long time,” said Christine Pickett, director of external relations for CAFNR, “but in the past half dozen years it has refocused itself in helping CAFNR accomplish things that the college can’t achieve on its own.” Specifically, the foundation is able handle assets and direct funds without some of the same budgeting restrictions found in the university setting. And while its mission is closely tied to CAFNR, it’s not an alumni organization—it is open to anyone who wants to lend their support (see Web site at end of story for details). 

A couple projects the foundation has participated in recently show just how times change in agriculture and how entrepreneurialism and collaboration can pay off in research and helping students prepare for careers.

Agriculture and hospitality

In 2008, the Gathering Place, a historic bed and breakfast on the east side of the University of Missouri’s campus came up for sale. It was just down the road from CAFNR’s Hospitality Management classrooms and labs, and it was a couple hundred yards from the main agriculture building. When viewed by its proximity to campus and potential value to CAFNR’s hospitality majors, the bed and breakfast looked like a potential asset for the college.

With input from CAFNR, the members of the College of Agriculture Foundation were convinced that buying the bed and breakfast would help fulfill the foundation’s mission. The foundation procured the funding and worked to close the real estate deal knowing that CAFNR could employ the asset to improve the learning experience for students majoring in hospitality management. Today, the foundation leases the property to CAFNR, whose hospitality management students use the facility to gain experience through work-study opportunities, internships and capstone projects.

Deb Strid, innkeeper at the Gathering Place said, “We try to keep about eight students involved here on a day-to-day basis. We work around their class schedules, with 7 a.m. through noon as our busiest time.” Strid and her husband Marc are the professional in-resident management for the operation, but the students get a chance to perform all the jobs required to run a bed and breakfast.

“They do it all,” said Strid. “They do housekeeping, laundry, food preparation and service. They clean the kitchen, take reservations and welcome guests. They learn the whole thing.”

Performing these jobs gives students a first-hand experience of the work they might be performing and managing after graduation. And while the work experience is valuable in itself, Strid said it’s meeting the guest that she thinks helps the students most.

“The best part here at the Gathering Place is to facilitate the interaction the students have with the guests. That’s a unique experience that they can’t get from other colleges.”

{gallery}March12/Found:200:260:1:2{/gallery}The Gathering Place employs modern, industry-proven software for guest and facility logistics, giving students experience that prepares them for post-college employment.

Strid said that occupancy rates are on the rise. Visiting lecturers and other academics account for much of the traffic at the Gathering Place, but the facility is open to the public. Last year we had about 35 percent occupancy in February. This year its 60 percent occupancy for February.”

Visit www.gatheringplacebedandbreakfast.com for information about staying at the facility. If you want to book for a football game, you’ll need your long-term calendar.

Composting and growing local

Just down the road from the well-kept rooms of the Gathering Place Bed and Breakfast, University of Missouri students dump leftover salad into a 30-gallon trash barrel. At a different residency hall cafeteria, uneaten spaghetti amasses in another 30-gallon barrel. By the end of the day, food waste from across campus will make its way to the University of Missouri’s Bradford Research Center to be turned into compost.

In total, about a half a ton of food waste is delivered to the farm each day. It’s part of a composting and vegetable-growing project that is growing into a showcase example for building a sustainable and local food chain. While the project launched with grant money and cooperation from University of Missouri dining services, the College of Agriculture Foundation is working to help fund the needed equipment.

Tim Reinbott, superintendent of the University of Missouri’s Bradford Research Center outside of Columbia, Mo., provides a good example how support from entities like the College of Agriculture Foundation can be leveraged in to education. During Reinbott’s tenure, Bradford has faced increased urban pressure. The farm once seemed a long way from town, but prosperous college towns have a way of fingering into the countryside. Bradford is now surrounded by acreages with houses—more each year. In that sense, Reinbott serves two constituencies. First, he knows that the farm’s proximity to MU’s Columbia campus means it’s essential for applied crops research, and professors and students count on that. But he also has recognized that research in the middle of a population center needs to be visitor-friendly and deliver results that the general public can see as directly beneficial in their lives. From quail habitat research to tomato festivals and sweet-corn variety evaluations and vegetable growing, Reinbott has helped steer research at the farm to wider audiences. The composting project, with its nod toward local food and closed-loop sustainability fits that outlook.

“It really started with our hoop houses,” said Reinbott. “We started taking our excess vegetables to Campus Dining. Once we got acquainted, Campus Dining’s executive chef, Eric Cartwright, told me, on average, students throw away 4.5 ounces of food per meal. That makes for 250 tons per year here.”

“The South Farm had been having trouble getting rid of their used horse bedding,” he said. “We put two and two together and decided to use the bedding and the food waste to make compost. We use the compost in our hoop houses and for our outdoor vegetable plots.”
Reinbott said Lincoln University had undertaken a similar project and gave him tips, particularly in the kind of facility to build and the equipment needed.

Under Bradford’s system, which is designed by students working on biological engineering degrees, food brought from campus is added to used horse bedding and stirred in a farm-sized PTO-powered mixer, where it begins its microbial composting. When the mixer is full, the material is moved to covered concrete bunks to finish composting. Reinbott said that the quantity of compost produced when the project hits full pace will be more than the farm can use in its vegetable projects. “We might tap the foundation with helping us bag and sell this stuff. It’s a very nice compost. Maybe we’d call it MizzouDoo.” 

Reinbott’s goal for the composting project is to show that the farm can be “completely green” in producing food. To meet that goal, equipment used for composting will run on biodiesel generated from used cooking oil also procured on campus.

“The College of Agriculture Foundation worked with the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council to purchase a biodiesel converter for us. We’re on the way,” said Reinbott.

Ed Turner, a trustee member for the foundation said that The College of Agriculture Foundation is increasingly active. Aside from its purchase of the bed and breakfast and work with the composting project, it purchased a tract of land adjacent to the CAFNR’s Horticulture and Agroforestry Research Center at New Franklin, Mo. The foundation is leasing the property to CAFNR to provide additional acres for research. “What we want to do,” said Turner, “is to help the college in ways that it can’t necessarily accomplish on its own.”
Find more about the foundation at http://www.collegeofagriculturefoundation.org.