PROGRESS: Dordt sees expansions of agriculture program

In 2018, the private Christian liberal arts college opened a new, larger Agriculture Stewardship Center (ASC) on the Broek Farm property, just off US-75, at the north end of Sioux Center. 

In 2023, Dordt gave word that it was named a "John Deere Partner School" in cooperation with AgriVision Equipment, an agriculture machinery business based in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. That partnership yielded a two-year "Agriculture Service Technician Program" which provides instruction from a certified John Deere technician who serves as a Dordt faculty member and focuses on the "connectedness of business, machinery, economic infrastructure, and the natural environment." The ASC serves as a venue for the program. Holly De Vries, an assistant professor of agriculture, previously told The Journal there's "definitely a need in the industry for technicians and people who just know how to fix tractors and run that equipment."

"We have students from all over the country who come to Dordt for the ag program and one of the things that really draws them in is the fact that we do have a farm that functions and we have livestock and we have crops and so it just feels like home to them," she said in October. "And, as a part of class activities or maybe even as a part-time student employment opportunity, can work work out there. So that's really nice that we have the opportunity to just be able to use a facility like the ASC for those sorts of things. So it's definitely a good recruiting tool."

In early 2024, the school started touting a new agriculture communication emphasis it said "prepares students to understand and communicate specialized agricultural science and information through journalism, public speaking, advertising, public relations, graphic design, and other media." De Vries said the move helped to address a need in the industry that been repeatedly voiced. Dordt's decades-long farm manager, Mike Schouten, made the point to The Journal that such focuses are important because not everyone in the ag program makes the career move to grow crops and raise livestock.

"Our students go all over. Some of them go home, back to the farm. Some go to banking, commodities, extension service, agronomist, nutritionist, some will go overseas on missions in underdeveloped countries helping them with farming techniques," he said.

The new addition Schouten was perhaps most excited for during a previous chat was the construction of a 167-by-62-feet monoslope, multi-species building which was begun in 2024 and had an expected completion date of December. He said the main emphasis for the space would be lambing and raising bottle calves. De Vries teaches an "Introduction to Animal Science" course and said a new location for the class would be a boon.

"The new building, now being referred to as the Animal Science Education Center is currently housing bottle calves," De Vries said in mid-March. "There is also a space for pregnant ewes that will arrive in April. As well, some students are conducting a research project on broiler chicken that also live in that building."

She said such a facility helps provide a new kind of freedom for the program, the ability to dream about different uses for student projects.

On the same grounds as the ASC is the Margaret teVelde Houtsma Laboratory which opened in 2022 and is to the south of the multi-species building. In addition to housing angus cows and dairy heifers, the site allows for pregnancy testing, weighing and vaccinating.

When asked in September whether or not having so many new spaces and so much new equipment made things easier for him, Schouten was clear.

"New is nice. New is always nice."