By Charlie Elrod, Ph.D.
President & CEO Natural Biologics and V.P. NEAFA
Rather than present this year’s Distinguished Service Award in absentia at NEAFA’s annual meeting, we elected to make the presentation at the recent Herd Health & Nutrition Conference when the recipient could be present. It turned out to be a most fitting audience for the presentation as everyone in the room had benefitted directly from the work of this year’s recipient. Indeed, at the announcement of Dr. Rick Grant as this year’s recipient, the room exploded in a standing ovation.
Rick grew up on a dairy farm near Potsdam, NY and went on to Cornell to earn his Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science. Moving west, Rick earned a Ph.D. in ruminant nutrition from Purdue University and then further west to take up a faculty research and extension position at the University of Nebraska. In 2003 Rick moved back closer to his roots when he was selected as President of the Miner Institute, succeeding Dr. Charlie Sniffen in that position. He has won numerous awards for his contributions to the industry and is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Vermont, Cornell University and Plattsburgh State University. Rick also chaired NEAFA’s education committee for several years and served a term as our President.
Over the last 20 years at Miner Institute, Rick has led a team of dedicated scientists and outreach specialists in fulfillment of Miner Institute’s Mission of Research, Education and Demonstration across their focus areas of dairy and equine management, crops and environmental conservation in Northern NY. In his typical gracious way, Rick suggested that the award was not for his contributions, but rather those of the whole Miner Institute team.
The breadth of Rick’s contributions are widely recognized. The research from the Miner Institute in his 20 year tenure has made significant inroads into many important topics:
Forage quality and digestibility, fiber analytics and metabolism
Feeding behavior, stocking density, cow comfort and time-budgets of dairy cattle
Dairy ration modelling and formulation
Milk fatty acid synthesis and analysis
Dairy innovation and sustainability
Transition cow metabolism, inflammation, management and health
As several of the conference participants related to me after the award, it wasn’t just the depth and breadth of Rick’s work that was so admirable, but really it was his ability to translate that work into information and practices that they could adopt for the betterment of dairy cows, their managers and farm profitability. Rick’s contributions have truly made the global dairy industry more efficient, profitable and sustainable. To view the latest farm report from the Miner Institute, click here.