SUNY Cobleskill Ag-Business Field Studies students are pictured here with Bill Voreis’ 36-row corn planter in Marshall County Indiana.

Trip through Indiana and Illinois Reinforces Classroom Lessons for Ag Business Students

The Chicago Board of Trade, a 500-acre fruit farm on Lake Ontario, a 500-vendor farmer’s market, a 3,600-acre corn farm, and a 12,000 head dairy farm, and the Caterpillar, Inc. engine plant were some of the many locales visited by 32 students and three of professors as part of the college’s two-credit course Field Studies in Agricultural Business.  Faculty members Timothy Moore, Dayton Maxwell and David Thompson, and Schoharie County Economic Development Specialist Lee Pratt accompanied the students on their May 20-26 trip through Indiana and Illinois.  This is the fifth year traveling course has been offered at SUNY Cobleskill.

”Class members gain first hand exposure to businesses and markets that exemplify subjects studied in Agricultural Business courses at SUNY Cobleskill,” said Maxwell.  “The trip reinforces for students key concepts, from income diversity and scale economics to capital investment management and alternative energy profitability.”

The first stop on the trip was Signer Farms in Appleton, New York.  Owner Jim Bittner shared management strategies for the over 500-acre fruit farm, particularly regarding the use of land leasing to provide the farm with flexibility to respond to markets and keep ownership costs down.

Out in Indiana, students experienced the Midwest Farmers’ Market in Elkhart—the largest indoor farmers market in the US.  “The market gave students the opportunity to learn about business location and niche marketing,” said Maxwell.  The 50,000 square foot facility provides a marketing outlet for agricultural growers and manufacturers within a 100 mile radius and a total shopping experience for non-farm consumers. 

Marshall County Indiana corn growers Brad and Kyle Stackhouse and neighboring corn grower Bill Voreis shared concepts that helped keep their farms viable, including succession planning, compromise and communication, spousal support, investment management through leasing land and technology investments that promote production efficiency. 

A premier visit for group was the Chicago Board of Trade, where students witnessed the opening bell and watched as global market forces helped traders discover commodity prices at the Chicago market.  Senior Ag-Business student Mike Neenan described the board as, “organized chaos.” 

Fair Oaks Dairy Farm, a 12,300 cow dairy farm demonstrated for students how a farm works to stay abreast of consumer desires as it is divided into BST, BST free and organic sub-farms.  The farm has a visitor center that demonstrates commercial dairy production, cheese making and retail sales.  Professor Tim Moore said, “Fair Oaks visitor center is like Disney World for the dairy industry.” 

In addition to a visit to the Caterpillar engine plant in Lafayette, Indiana, students made a daylong trip to Purdue University, visited a hybrid seed wholesaler, saw a 5.5 million bushel grain elevator, and toured a central New York winery.

Ensuring that the trip was not all work and no play, the group also made stops at Niagara Falls, Cabella’s Sporting Goods and Cedar Point Amusement Park.  For more information on SUNY Cobleskill’s Agricultural Business program and the field studies course, contact Tim Moore at mooretw@cobleskill.edu or Dayton Maxwell at maxweldt@cobleskill.edu.