Spring 2009

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Got Milk? MANRRS President Investigates its Traceability

Brittini Brown, a graduate student in agricultural and biosystems engineering, will finish her thesis in July. Her research is focused on commodity traceability – specifically the traceability of milk.

Traceability is a hot topic. When the food industry has problems with items like peanut butter and spinach, companies need to identify where the product has been distributed.

Brittini Brown, a graduate student in agricultural and biosystems engineering researching commodity traceability, is doing a case study on the traceability of milk.

“We are expanding the knowledge base on traceability, and it’s so exciting. What I’m attempting to do is trace processed milk products back to the farm, where the corn was grown and fed to the dairy cattle that produced the milk,” Brown says. “With other industries you can take the parts and trace them back to where they were made, like a car. What we’re doing is very similar.”

Education is everything to Brittini Brown and it’s evident in how she articulates her goals and accomplishments.

Every summer since she graduated from high school Brown has interned at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). She’s evaluated and inspected everything from food markets to meatpackers.

“I have conducted audits on beef exports in the middle of July in a meatpacking plant in Amarillo,” Brown says. “It made me appreciate my education. It also makes me feel safer about the food I eat.”

The internships are a component of the USDA 1890 Scholars Program, a scholarship she received in high school. The USDA partners with 1890 land grant universities (historically black colleges and universities designated as land-grants in 1890) to provide the scholarships and internships. After she graduates this summer she’ll move to Washington, D.C. to begin a permanent position with FSIS.

“The funny thing is that I started out wanting to be a doctor. Once I started interning with the USDA, I understood that you can do anything in agriculture,” Brown says. “There’s a huge misconception about agriculture. When I mentioned that I would be working for the USDA, my peers thought I would be working in a field in rural Arkansas.”

While working on her thesis she served as the 2008-09 president of the Minorities in Agriculture Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) at Iowa State. She credits MANRRS for introducing her to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the opportunities it’s provided.

“MANRRS is great because it provides a network of mentors and friends,” Brown says. “We have about 30 students in our chapter and we do community service and campus activities. Our chapter has won National MANRRS Chapter of the Year three times in the past four years.”

Last fall Brown went back to her hometown of Augusta, Ark. to share her experiences with a class of junior high students.

“I want students to know that regardless of their background, race or socioeconomic status, education is the one thing that no one can ever take away. I told the students they can do anything they want and go anywhere they want,” Brown says. “I did it, and I started in that same small town.”

Brown received her undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. She says she’d like to return to Arkansas someday to teach at the university.

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