News Releases

(KNOXVILLE, Tenn.) - Tennessee’s budget reductions are affecting personnel, services, and now livestock.

More than 350 beef cattle owned by the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station will be sold at auction on August 30. The sale represents the dispersal of the herd at the Knoxville Experiment Station’s Alcoa Unit, which is one of eight units operated by the Knoxville Experiment Station.

The cattle to be sold represent about 13 percent of the beef cattle maintained for research purposes by the statewide UT Experiment Station system. Almost 2700 beef cattle will still be available for research, teaching, and demonstrations.

The overall mission of the UT Agricultural Experiment Station is not changing, said Dr. Jack Britt, UT vice president for agriculture. “We will continue our efforts to enhance agricultural industry and advance agricultural science for the benefit of producers and consumers,” he said.

“Students and teaching remain a priority,” confirmed Dr. John Hodges, superintendent of the Knoxville Experiment Station. Hodges said animals will be available for programs of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Agricultural Extension Service.

The Knoxville Experiment Station is one of 11 agricultural research facilities in the UT Agricultural Experiment Station system. The facilities are operated in different climatic and geographic areas across the state. Although each facility is making adjustments to their operations because of mandatory fiscal reductions, the Knoxville Station is undergoing the most extensive restructuring.

After the cattle sale, the Alcoa Unit will be closed, and the land that the cattle currently call home - more than 1000 acres - will be managed by the Aluminum Company of America. ALCOA currently leases the land to the university.

In addition to closing the Alcoa Unit, Hodges said other cost-reduction efforts involving the Knoxville Experiment Station include closing a poultry research facility and the sale of the Jersey cattle from the station’s dairy.

Dairy research is conducted at three UT experiment stations across the state: in Knoxville, at the Middle Tennessee Experiment Station in Spring Hill, and at the Dairy Experiment Station in Lewisburg. The Knoxville Station maintains a mixed dairy herd that includes Holstein and Jersey cattle. On September 13 the station’s 85 Jerseys will be sold, representing a 17 percent reduction in the statewide experiment station dairy herd. Animals from the other dairies are not involved in the sale. The Dairy Experiment Station Jersey herd, which includes 165 cows, is known as the best documented and largest Jersey research herd in the nation.

“Closing the Alcoa Unit and implementing changes to Knoxville’s poultry and dairy research programs are expected to reduce the Knoxville Experiment Station’s operating costs by $285,000 a year,” Hodges said.

Proceeds from the sales will be used to upgrade facilities at the Knoxville Station’s remaining units. The station will continue to manage a beef herd of 125 Angus cattle and a dairy herd of 110 milking Holsteins for research, teaching and demonstrations.

Future beef research will be conducted on the Knoxville Experiment Station with cattle located at the Holston and Blount units, while poultry and dairy research will continue at facilities located across the Tennessee River from the Knoxville agricultural campus.

Hodges admits that the character of the research efforts in Knoxville is likely to change. “We’ll do more of what I call intensive research,” he said. “The principal investigators are likely to have more close contact with the animals, particularly the beef cattle. Our facilities won’t be doing long-term pasture or nutrition research projects requiring several hundred acres or several hundred animals.” Such efforts will be located at one of the other agricultural experiment stations in the state.

For more information about the sale of beef and Jersey cattle from the Knoxville Experiment Station, contact Hodges at 865-974-7201.

# # #

Contacts: Dr. John Hodges, 865-974-7201; Patricia McDaniels, 865-974-7141