When it comes to valuable outside-the-classroom learning experiences, a competition attended by a team of students from McGill’s Macdonald Campus ticked all the boxes.
Four students in the Farm Management and Technology (FMT) program travelled to California in early April for the 2024 North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge.
Their task? Analyze a well-managed dairy farm – looking at everything from milk production and cow comfort to environmental and financial considerations – and come up with recommendations to enhance operations.
“It’s the most applied hands-on experience they can have,” says Mathieu Leduc, a Faculty Lecturer in the program who accompanied the students on the trip. The competition touches on almost every course in the FMT program, “and there’s a really strong financial part to it. They have to develop investment budgets and stuff like that,” Leduc notes. “As future businesspeople managing a farm, it’s critical that they develop that skill.”
Thirty-two teams participated in the three-day event.
FMT students Connor Velthuis and Beatrice Neveu, who both grew up on dairy farms and plan to continue the tradition, found it an interesting and instructive experience.
“I go home, I look at my farm and you say ‘well, this is how we do things, so it must be good,’ says Velthuis, who hails from just outside Ottawa. “But whenever you’re forced to go somewhere else, and you actually have to think about what they’re doing and criticize that, it helps you become a better farm manager for sure.”
Neveu’s family runs a small 50-cow dairy in Rawdon, northeast of Montreal, with a robot for milking. The farm that she, Velthuis and teammates David Kolton Crack and Jason McOuat visited in California contained 5,600 milking cows. (To put that in perspective, the average herd at Quebec dairy farms is 78 cows.) “It was beautiful to see such a well managed farm with such good animal welfare on a large scale. So, it was mostly around what we could see with our eyes that was probably the most enriching part of the experience,” Neveu says.
“It was amazing to hear the input that everybody else had, and it just gets your brain going,” she adds.
After visiting the farm, the FMT team brainstormed for hours to come up with a management plan and made their presentation the next day to judges who provided feedback.
The students gained exposure to dairy production in the United States, which Leduc points out is a much different scenario than in Canada. But dairies across North America use the same technology and feed and “it’s important to see what’s coming, what is being done in those farms,” he says. In addition, the event is a big career fair, with students required to bring their resumés. “It’s really great for internships, job opportunities – it’s a really unique set-up,” Leduc says.
This year marked the first time since the pandemic that a team from Mac Campus competed in the national Dairy Challenge. The Farm Management and Technology program is the only CEGEP-level (collegial) program offered by McGill. Ninety-four students are currently enrolled in the three-year diploma program, which prepares students to operate and manage an agricultural business and for careers in horticulture and agriculture. They study a sequence of courses in soil, plant, and animal science, engineering, and management, including instruction in farm accounting and marketing.
Students can only compete once at the national Dairy Challenge and many of their expenses are covered by the competition. For their travel costs, the Mac Campus team turned to sponsors, and to crowdfunding on McGill24, the University’s annual day of giving, on March 13. Their fundraising effort was among more than 100 crowdfunding projects led by students across the University. Donors contributed more than $3,600 for the Dairy Challenge trip, a portion of which will be topped up by matching funds from generous donors as the donations were made on McGill24.
Leduc expressed gratitude that people recognized it was a worthwhile hands-on learning experience.
“Those four students, when they come back, their heads are going to be filled with new ideas, new projects, and I really appreciate that people can see the value in that,” Leduc said on the eve of the trip.
“We’re very grateful for our sponsors and everybody that helped us get there,” says Neveu. “It’s really what made the experience possible.”