Center of Excellence for Poultry Science hosts Short Course on Modern Poultry Production
April 14, 2009Contact Information:
Frank Jones, Associate Center Director for Extension
Center of Excellence for Poultry Science
479-575-5443, ftjones@uark.edu
By Sara Landis, Department of Poultry Science
Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas System
479-575-3192 / slandis@uark.edu
Lori Michalski of Roberts-Gordon LLC, Buffalo, N.Y., talks to a chick while on a field trip during the Short Course on Modern Poultry Production held at the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science, University of Arkansas System’s Division of Agriculture.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Educators, students and industry personnel from Canada, India and throughout the United States attended the Short Course on Modern Poultry Production March 30-April 3 at the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science, which is part of the University of Arkansas System’s Division of Agriculture, on the university’s Fayetteville campus.
Frank Jones, Cooperative Extension Service section leader for poultry and a University of Arkansas faculty member, said the annual event provides a broad understanding of how the modern United States poultry industry operates. Participants interact with some of the top poultry science faculty in the world and receive hands-on experiences designed to reinforce their classroom learning, Jones said.
Some of the hands-on workshops included poultry inside and out, egg formation and candling exercises, and the economics of decision making. Scheduled field trips, which allowed participants to view production and processing principles in action and to interact with industry officials, were taken to Simmons Foods and Tyson Foods, both in Springdale, and Benton County Foods in Siloam Springs.
“The short course is truly a team effort,” said Jones. “We employ several techniques to teach participants about the industry including lecture, demonstration, hands-on exercises and field trips to commercial poultry facilities in operation. The lectures, demonstrations and exercises are conducted by university poultry faculty who, in my opinion, are some of the most qualified in the world, while the tours are made possible by industry cooperators.”
The short course was begun in 2000 to help provide a wider audience with a “big picture” overview of the commercial poultry industry. The course provides participants with the “mental framework” necessary to understand both where information fits within the industry and how the various parts of the industry are connected.
The poultry science department and the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science include a complex of teaching, research and extension facilities at the Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center and the John W. Tyson Poultry Science Building on campus. The department provides the curriculum for B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs.