‘TIL THE COWS COME HOME

Jay Hansen and family have built a dairy enterprise around their Holstein herd in northeast Iowa including an on-farm creamery, a retail store and ice cream shop and a dairy outlet.

The curious faces of children peer out farmhouse windows, greeting recent visitors to the Hansen Family dairy farm in northeast Iowa.

Those little faces are the seventh generation of the family to be raised on the land since the 1860s.

Although the dairy operation near Hudson, Iowa, may be reminiscent of adifferent era, Jay Hansen (’71 agricultural education), his wife Jeanne and their family are keyed in to current consumer trends.

Their workday begins before 4 a.m. with the first milking. The cows will be milked again at 4 p.m. Every 12 hours, every day, the milking continues.

“We’re a little old fashioned,” Jay says.  Our animals spend as much time outside as possible.”

Hansen’s herd of 175 Holsteins gives more than 1,200 gallons of milk per day.  They raise their own replacement heifers and have an additional 25 dry cows. They don’t use growth hormones to produce milk and their milk is non-homogenized.

Coming home to farm

About 10 years ago, the Hansens expanded the herd to allow two of their sons to join the operation. When their other two sons expressed interest in joining the operation, Jay knew they would need to expand again to support five families.

In response, they added on-farm processing.  Their first milk was bottled in 2004, and within two years, the Hansens were selling all the milk they could produce.

“We were introduced to the processing idea by Iowa State’s Ron Orth with the Iowa Institute of Cooperatives.  After studying as many ‘what if’ scenarios as possible, we started processing and things have just worked out,” Hansen says.

Jay can sound like a marketing analyst.  He talks in terms like market radius (25 miles surrounding the farm) and managing supply and demand.  He says they initially focused on smaller grocery stores, daycares and nursing homes.  In time, larger grocery stores contacted Hansen to stock their products due to customer requests.

“Our product sells itself. It has flavor to die for. Once they taste it, people keep coming back,” Hansen says.

Hansen is quick to point out he’s “no entrepreneur.” What he admits to, is being innovative. “We’re just doing what farmers have done for years—finding innovative ways to make money.”

Today their dairy enterprises consist of J&J Dairy, their Holstein herd; Hansen’s Farm Fresh Dairy, farm-processed creamery products; Moo Roo, a Waterloo retail store serving up their hard-dip ice cream and selling their milk, cheese curds, butter, cream and other local products; and Hansen’s Farm Fresh Dairy Outlet in Cedar Falls. In total they have nearly 20 employees in addition to 7 family members involved in various roles.

A typical day at the Hansen farm?

One recent spring day included milking, making cheese curds, draining butter, loading and making deliveries, grooming hooves and catching a loose bull. And that was just before noon.

It’s hard to imagine how they keep everything straight.  But both Jay and Jeanne have a supporting team of family members who help keep everything running smoothly.

Blair (’00 dairy science), the third oldest of the Hansen children, handles herd feeding, nutrition and the family’s crop program growing alfalfa and corn.  Son Blake is in charge of herd management and milking, and Blake‘s wife, Jordan, manages the farm’s website.

Oldest son Brent is in charge of sales and delivery, making 125 weekly stops.  Youngest son Brad, an ISU elementary education grad, works in processing and prepping product. The Hansen’s fifth child, daughter Lynn, is a fellow Iowa Stater with a degree in elementary education. She lives in Omaha with her husband and children.

Jeanne is in charge of public relations, which includes a thriving agritourism business that attracts nearly 3,000 school children, 4-Hers, seniors and other visitors annually.

The Hansens believe they are marketing more than milk. It’s a relationship with their customers. The trust is apparent with on-farm pick up of products available on the honor system. Each day as many as 30 customers help themselves to what they need from a cooler adjacent to the processing area, signing in and leaving payment in a drop box.

The family recently took on a new marketing partnership with Hawkeye Foodservice Distributers, which wants to sell more locally grown food to restaurants and food suppliers. Jay says it has significantly broadened their products’ reach.

Jay and Jeanne continue to innovate. They are building a unique domed home and visitor’s center in preparation for future generations of Hansens.

See scenes from a day in the life of Hansen’s Dairy.

ADVANCING SCIENCE & EDUCATION IN JORDAN

Soil physicist Anwar Battikhi is currently president of the Jordan Society for Scientific Research, which brings together public and private sector researchers for discussions like this Conference of Research involving nearly 1,500 scientists.

By Melea Reicks Licht

Ask Anwar Battikhi where he’s from and he’ll offer an oratory of familial descent beginning with his great grandfather’s emigration from Syria to Jordan in the mid-19th century.

It’s clear roots run deep for this world-renowned soil scientist who has a knack for storytelling as well as agricultural research, educational leadership and policymaking.

Battikhi (‘77 Ph.D. soil physics) of Amman, Jordan is a professor of soil physics and irrigation at the University of Jordan and a recognized expert in several agricultural disciplines.

He also serves as president of the Jordan Society for Scientific Research, which has about 600 members. The group holds bi-weekly activities for its members in various fields to share problems, brainstorm solutions and make those leading the private and public sectors aware of hurdles facing researchers.

As the former Secretary General of The Higher Council for Science and Technology, he represented that organization and the Kingdom of Jordan before Arab, regional and international institutions and bodies concerned with science and technology.

“The Higher Council for Science and Technology is where all the plans are set for Jordan for future research and to solve current problems,” he says. “We put strategies into action bringing the private sector to work with the public sector, introducing innovation, helping researchers all over the country.”

Prior to his current position, he served as a faculty member and administrator at the University of Jordan for 20 years, before being appointed vice president for Jordan University for Science and Technology, then president of the Hashemite University. He made significant changes during his tenure as president that led to exponential growth in numbers of faculty and students. He also established an institute for water and environment and seven other schools.

“I introduced new departments needed to solve the unemployment problem and to inject a new blood in the working force with new specialties, high qualifications and with new ideas,” Battikhi says.

Battikhi was presented with the Award of Excellence in Education in the Kingdom of Jordan, and received the Abd el Hamid Shoman Award for Best Young Scientist in the Arab World in 1986. He received the ISU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009.

He holds his experiences at Iowa State in high regard, especially those with the late Don Kirkham. “Professor Kirkham was the father of soil physics in the United States and even in the world,” Battikhi says. “He taught me dedication and the science of research methodology in soil water.”

But, he says it was what he learned at Iowa State besides the science that was most important to his career successes.

“I grew personally and developed leadership skills,” he says. “I learned how to listen to others, how to have mutual respect between students and instructors and how to be objective – all essential in the positions I held during the last 35 years.”

##

STORIES online extra:

Battikhi received the ISU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009. The following excerpt is from his acceptance speech. Read the complete text.

“I believe that through the power of knowledge and science, we can unite to create a more coherent and happier world for us to live in. What if all resources wasted in wars and killing are invested to further develop humanity? Our earth has become a small village, so what if peace and understanding become the domineering power that holds it together?… This will help us see beyond our differences, and focus on the value of the human being.”

BRINGING THE NUTRITION OF MILK TO MILLIONS

By Melea Reicks Licht

Alex Buchanan samples a few fortified biscuits with global resource systems student Briana McNeal. Buchanan met with a group of students during a recent visit to Iowa State to share lessons learned during his career developing nutritional supplements.

To combat malnutrition, the president of Zambia promised one pint of milk per day to each school-age child in the country. He soon found his promise impossible to keep. Thankfully, Alex Buchanan was able to help.

It was the early 1970s, and Buchanan (‘60 MS dairy bacteriology and agricultural economics) had recently developed nutritionally fortified biscuits that would help the president keep his promise.

Promoted with the slogan “eat more milk,” an intense publicity campaign encouraged people to feed the nutritious biscuits to their young children. The president wore the ring-shaped cookies on a string around his neck, and Buchanan was photographed feeding them to his own daughter.

The nutritional biscuits Buchanan developed more than 35 years ago still are used today in developing countries and for disaster relief.

Buchanan recently sat down with a group of global resource systems students at Iowa State. He shared lessons learned during his life’s work bringing the nutritional benefits of milk to those without access due to location or circumstance.

As he looked across the table Buchanan saw a little of himself in the burgeoning scientists, many bent on finding ways to improve food systems in developing countries. The secret to his success, he shared, was getting to know the locals and customizing each product to the region’s tastes, culture and nutritional needs.

“When I started my research they had tried to offer milk powder to developing countries. It turns out locals weren’t used to the flavor, they didn’t have refrigeration once it was mixed — assuming they had safe water to mix it with, and many were lactose intolerant,” he says.

With the support of the Australian Dairy Board, he and his research team at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization dairy research laboratory in Melbourne chose a new focus. They created a fortified biscuit with all the nutritional value of milk, and it improved children’s health immediately.

“I heard over and over again that once the kids started eating the biscuits they would stay awake all morning in primary school,” he says. “Kids put on a tremendous amount of weight – a couple of kilos in a few weeks. And the most heartening result was vitamin A deficiencies disappeared quickly.”

In a feeding trial with Ethiopian AIDS orphans in 2005, Buchanan says researchers noticed a similar dramatic improvement in weight and body mass index.

The high-protein Australian milk biscuit and a second high-energy biscuit they also developed still are staples of his country’s international food aid program, Buchanan says. Six biscuits are nutritionally equal to one pint of milk. Each biscuit is 20 percent fat, 20 percent protein and 55 percent carbohydrate with the remaining percent in moisture, vitamins and minerals.

Buchanan also developed an affordable infant food made from rice and soy flour as part of his work at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, Thailand.

“Post-weaning infants were experiencing serious brain damage due to malnutrition, a problem that affects more than half the world’s children. We produced a weaning food that suited them. It was equivalent to milk, but it was distributed widely and the kids liked it,” he says. “That was 35 years ago and they’re still producing it in Bangkok for $1 per pound.”

During his conversation with ISU students, Buchanan told them it is possible to marry science with public policy to make a difference.

“You need to pay attention to conflicting science and take a multidisciplinary approach in case the answers change, as it did in our case,” he says. “And you need to gain support of influential people making public policy.”

An active Rotarian, Buchanan came to Iowa State as a Fulbright Scholar and Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in 1959. He says dairy bacteriology professor Gene Nelson talked him into staying for his master’s degree, which he pursued at a feverish pace and completed in just nine months.

Buchanan credits his degree at ISU for opening the door for him to change his career from a dairy factory manager to food research for the premier research organization in Australia.

He also is former executive director of the Crawford Fund, a division of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering that promotes technological expertise and agricultural research to increase sustainable global food production. And for over a decade he managed food research projects for the ASEAN-Australia Economic Corporation.

Buchanan now is a consultant editor and professorial fellow at Victoria University in Melbourne.

He was recently honored with the Rotary Foundation Global Alumni Service to Humanity Award and has been named a member of the Order of Australia for his service to food science and technology and to the community.

##

STORIES online extra: Listen to a podcast of Buchanan’s lecture at Iowa State University.

WORKING SIDE-BY-SIDE FOR HONDURAS

By Melea Reicks Licht

Alejandrina Carrasco (left) leads Peace Corps’ efforts to improve communities in Honduras. Carrasco, Peace Corps volunteer Brian Sabri and Marale Vice Mayor Odalma Gonzalez established a work plan for Marale.

As a volunteer manager for Peace Corps in Honduras, Alejandrina Carrasco looks at her job as a way to bring two cultures together for a common good.

“The Peace Corps has a beautiful mission to provide technical assistance to countries that require support. It’s a cultural exchange – volunteers come to share American culture and learn about Honduran culture,” she says.

Carrasco (’01 PhD agricultural education) is the manager of the Peace Corps municipal development project in her native country.  She serves as liaison to the Government of Honduras to determine their interests, needs and potential for cooperation. It is her job to ensure her volunteers’ efforts are consistent with those of the government and Peace Corps philosophy. She oversees 35 volunteers in the field, develops training and evaluates programming for the volunteers.

Her programs include mentoring mayors to improve services to citizens, leadership training for community based organizations or initiatives to improve participation in municipalities. Carrasco says she enjoys working in different parts of Honduras, facilitating technical assistance in the field and training volunteers.

“Everything is related to human development in my eyes – that’s how this work is special to me,” she says. “I supervise work in the field and can also provide my own advice. I’m helping Hondurans through my volunteers who work side-by-side with Hondurans.”

Carrasco has degrees in technical agriculture and agronomy from Zamorano, Pan-American School of Agriculture in Honduras. She says her degrees served her well in her work in extension and agricultural training. But she wanted to learn more about how to transfer her technical knowledge and apply it for the benefit of her fellow Hondurans.

“When I worked in a rural community after my first degree, I realized people don’t have the means to get the latest technology or sometimes the openness to accept technology,” she says. “I had the knowledge, but didn’t know how to transfer what I know to these people, or how to get it to work with their means so I became interested in extension education.”

Carrasco learned English so she could pursue higher education in the United States.  After completing her masters at Louisiana State University she came to Iowa State where she says she found a welcoming, supportive environment for international students. She returned to Honduras and joined the Peace Corps staff in 2002. Her commitment to her country is apparent to the volunteers she supervises.

“Ale told me she loved her country as well as her family and she wanted to make it a better place,” says returned Peace Corps volunteer Robert Clink, a financial management officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Dominican Republic. “I knew Ale really understood the bigger picture. What I learned firsthand was Honduras is a country with amazing people and so much potential. Extreme poverty is a fact of life in that country, but Ale truly has dedicated herself to making the country a better place.”