RuthAnn Homes

SDSU Dairy Research and Training Facility is due to close at the end of June 2024 after several financial challenges.  

CAFES Dean Joe Cassidy sent out an email on January 16 informing students that the facility would be closing after several “fundraising opportunities and attempts.” What has led to this decision is a mixture of financial challenges and an outdated facility according to Cassidy.

These financial challenges stem from COVID-19 when the SDSU dairy stakeholders pushed to renovate the current dairy facility with the COVID-19 money coming into the state. A request was put into motion for the legislature and the budget that was requested for a new dairy was $18 million but upon Cassidy’s arrival, he was told to ask for $15 million. The dairy project was appropriated $7.5 million with the deal that SDSU was to raise matching funds. 

Cassidy at the Jan. 22 Students’ Association meeting said, “You have to find 2 to 4 major donors who are willing to contribute 80% of the funds after the 80% is raised the other 20% can be from several donors.” 

The final total raised was approximately between $1 million to $1.5 million. That donation status did not match the legislature’s circumstances for funding the dairy facility. Since the money wasn’t raised, the $7.5 million was not granted for the building of the DRTF. The past 4 years have been rough on the DRTF with Covid, a fire in one of the barns and a derecho tearing off a portion of the roof and failure of USDA inspections added to the degradation of the facility and swaying the decision of closure.  

Students are concerned about the quality of education the dairy majors will have in the future and Cassidy has recognized it. 

“I’m confident that we can continue to offer quality education in dairy production,” Cassidy said. “We need to sit back carefully and ask what are the skills that our students need when they enter the dairy world. And what types of jobs are likely to be doing? And then what mechanisms are available to us to provide them with that education? And I think if we take that approach, we will continue to have a quality program.”  

With the shutting down of the DRTF Cassidy is “concerned” about enrollment because without it people won’t allow the university to demonstrate that we can continue to offer a quality program, according to Cassidy. He encourages students to not give up on SDSU on this front.  

The dairy and food sciences are comprised of Dairy manufacturing, Dairy Production and Biological Sciences. Dairy Production will be biological sciences. Dairy production will be cheese, and butter for the foreseeable future. With the DRTF closing the single producer of milk towards the Davis Dairy Plant will need to look for other sellers of milk. Beckman said “the change of milk supplier to the Davis Dairy Plant upon the closure of the DRTF is not expected to impact the cost of production, or the amount of ice cream, cheese, or butter our students manufacture. Any production cost changes are due to market factors, which the Dairy Plant has always been subject to, regardless of our milk supplier.”

Currently, there is no concern about cheese or ice cream production stopping because of the DRTF closure.  

The DRTF is located 1 ½ miles north of the SDSU campus and the lactation barn and milking parlor was built in 1988. The facility houses 130 Holstein and Brown Swiss dairy cows and approximately 140 head of replacement heifers. The barns haven’t been updated since 1994 making the unit 30 years old. 

Student reactions 

Currently, 40 undergraduate students and 29 graduate students are in the Department of Dairy and Food Science. Some of these students shared their reactions with the Collegian. Here is what they said: 

Jacob Schaefer, a senior dairy production major worked at the facility in the past. He said although the conditions weren’t great the facility was usable. Schaefer also said this will be a hit to the dairy program and the research graduate students do.  

Allision Wright said her initial reaction was “Where does this put the dairy department in the future?” She thinks the closing of the facility might prevent students from coming to SDSU in the future.  

“I think that is how we draw students, but without a unit, it will be difficult to say,” she said.  

Wright also said the dairy facility was usable, although she added the managers have not done a great job at maintaining the facility.  

Isaac Berg, senior animal science major said he was disappointed to learn about the closing of the facility but said but is more understanding than some other students.  

“An important thing to keep in mind is that they didn’t want to close it down and if there were any other options to keep it open, they would’ve gone through those options, but it won’t work this time,” Berg said.  

With this decision alumni and students “were in shock” and “a lot of hurt” according to Margaret Molitor a dairy production and ag communications student. Students and alumni have been upfront about the shock of the closure and how the notification of the closure occurred. 

Margaret Socha, who graduated from SDSU in 2021 with a dairy production degree, said she was shocked to hear about the closing of the unit.  

“We knew the facilities weren’t in great condition and knew they were getting funds to build a new unit,” she said.  

Socha doesn’t believe there wasn’t support for a new facility.  

“I know the university says they intend to keep the department and the majors, but I doubt the program will keep going in the years to come,” Socha said. “I see this as the first step to it all being shut down and merged with other programs and departments.” 

The Collegian also sat down with some dairy farmers from the area. Jenn Bauman, owner, and dairy herd manager of Bauman Dairy Farms. Bauman said this is a huge loss to the dairy community.

“Being a dairy farmer and seeing your local state university put millions of dollars into sports, but they can’t make any changes or find any money for dairy, I don’t think words can explain how bad it is going to hurt the dairy industry,” Bauman said.

Dean Cassady said he “has not ruled out SDSU ever having a dairy farm. “ and “If somebody walked in tomorrow and wrote me a extremely large check I will be more than happy to reengage the process of planning a new dairy.” Cassady wants to support SDSU dairy students and hopes to continue building the dairy science program.