Commuters and visitors to Penn State probably spend little time wondering where we get the feed for the beef cows munching contentedly in the pasture near the Ag Arena, or how the dairy herd that makes milk for the University Creamery obtains their high-quality rations. The answer can be found at the corner of Park Avenue and Fox Hollow Road in a group of mostly white
buildings known as Farm Operations.

Manager Glen Cauffman and 13 other employees produce a variety of crops on a 1,600-acre patchwork of University farmland, most of which is located between the campus and the University Park Airport. Cauffman’s crew also performs a host of other duties, such as land application of manure, composting, driving student buses on field trips, managing events at the Ag Arena, and preparing farm fields for football parking.

Cauffman says his crew does everything workers on a large commercial farm do except feed livestock.

They also maintain the college’s farm equipment and modify it for research projects. While the farm managers at Rock Springs tend to use smaller-scale tractors and equipment, Cauffman’s crew uses large, state-of-the-art combines, sprayers, and harvesters outfitted with global positioning systems and other precision agriculture equipment. “We tend to buy new equipment more frequently than regular farmers because manufacturers ask us to evaluate it,” Cauffman says.

Farm Operations also plays an integral role in recycling waste generated by Penn State. Millions of gallons of treated sewage wastewater generated by the University are sprayed onto cereal rye, wheat, corn, and soybean crops, which absorb wastes and nutrients from the water, thus recharging groundwater reserves. Known as the “living filter,” this process has been used since 1970. The crops are harvested every fall and used for animal feeds. The wheat is used to make straw for animal bedding.

The operations crew manages other waste products as well. A pilot program started in 1997 transforms manure from University herds, leaf litter from the campus’s 12,000 trees, and food waste from dining facilities into compost that landscape crews use on University projects. The current three-quarter-acre composting site will soon expand into a six-acre site that will handle most of Penn State’s food waste.

Unlike most Pennsylvania farmers, Cauffman doesn’t have to worry about crop prices or whether he can pay a tax bill, but that doesn’t mean Farm Operations is immune to all agricultural problems. For example, the college loses farmland every year to development. In 1999, 100 acres of farmland were taken to complete a highway interchange for Interstate 99. The University also must add new buildings if it expects to remain one of the top educational institutions in the nation, and nearly all the developable land near the campus is farmed by Cauffman’s crew. The clash of agricultural practices and suburban culture can be a problem in State College as well, particularly if a Penn State combine holds up traffic to get to another field.

To alleviate the transportation problems, crews have built gravel cartways that minimize the need to drive equipment on area streets. “We’ve become much more sensitive about when we spread manure, as well as water quality issues, because we really are under a magnifying glass,” Cauffman says. Farm Operations also has a strict timetable for harvesting fields closest to campus: the crops must be out in time to provide parking for Penn State’s first home football game. “That’s not a problem most farmers have,” he says with a smile.

Several researchers collaborate with Farm Operations to mount large-scale field experiments that require more acreage than the Rock Springs research farms can provide. Occasionally, the University’s farmers also delve into nonagricultural research. In 1999, the late James Hatch, a Penn State anthropologist, asked farm worker Ron Krout to plow up several acres of ground that would soon be developed as part of the I-99 highway project. The land had been identified as a historically significant site, and the soil had to be tilled to expose possible artifacts. The tilling revealed remains of fire pits where American Indian tribes had heated jasper, a stone that produces extremely sharp tools when heated and chipped. Anthropologist Tim Murtha, who took over the project when Hatch died, dated the artifacts from 3500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.

Cauffman says he gets to spend little or no time doing actual farming duties. As the college’s representative on a variety of organization boards and supervisor for a wide range of activities, he spends most of his time in meetings. Brian Macafee, assistant farm manager, oversees most of the day-to-day farming. Macafee, who rents a renovated farmhouse on University property, started his career as one of Cauffman’s student workers and decided to make Penn State farming his life’s work. Although he grew up on a Bradford County dairy farm, Macafee has found that Penn State’s farms have an allure other enterprises cannot match.

“I’m never doing the same thing from day to day, and I work with people from athletics to police services,” he says. “Where else could I walk out of my house and have a 400-acre backyard?”

Faculty and staff referenced in this article are Glen Cauffman, farm operations manager; Barbara Christ, professor of plant pathology; William Curran, associate professor of weed science; David Eissenstat, professor of woody plant physiology; Shelby Fleischer, associate professor of entomology; Scott Harkcom, agronomy farm manager; Larry Jordan, plant pathology and USDA farm manager; William Lamont, associate professor of vegetable crops; Brian Macafee, assistant farm operations manager; Alan MacNab, professor of plant pathology; Bob Oberheim, horticulture farm manager; Michael Orzolek, professor of vegetable crops; Paul Rebarchak, coordinator of greenhouse facilities in agronomy and former entomology farm manager; Gregory Roth, associate professor of agronomy; James Starling, senior associate dean emeritus; and James Travis, professor of plant pathology. Research is funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania, National Crop Insurance Services, the National Science Foundation, the National Research Initiative, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Regional Integrated Pest Management and Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension programs.