ACC to sell college farm

After a 36-year association, ACC’s board of trustees voted this week to sell Allen Farm.
The project was begun in 1979 with the hope of turning a portion of farmland 5 miles north of Iola into a student-run laboratory for agricultural learning.
It also has served as a student residence since 2000, when, thanks to the financial gifts of ACC alum Richard Zahn, the college constructed a house intended for eight students — four of whom would be recipients of the Zahn scholarship, one of the college’s most lucrative awards, covering housing, tuition, fees and books for eligible ag students.
Despite the majesty of the aim and the best efforts of administrators over the years, explained Allen Community College president John Masterson on Wednesday, the practical operations of the farm never kept pace with the ideal.
According to Masterson, the farm has long been underutilized. “Even after discussions of closing the farm last year, the farm was only used two to three times a month by classroom instructors…. [It] has never been able to be utilized as an agricultural laboratory in the way that those who lobbied for its purchase intended.”
The move to sell, however, emphasized Masterson, in no way signals a flight from the original ambitions of the school’s agriculture program.
“In fact, one of the things that I want our community to understand is that, with this decision, we are trying to enhance our ag program, not detract from it.”
Masterson recommends that, in place of the farm manager the college employed to oversee student operations at the farm, ACC look toward hiring an individual to act as an “agricultural program recruiter” and “internship coordinator.”
“Someone who will continue the livestock judging but will focus on recruiting students to the ag programs on this campus, online” — where the college has experienced its largest growth — “and around the Burlingame area. This person would develop relationships with area farmers and start developing some internship possibilities, so that if a student wants to go work on a swine operation for a while, they could do that. Then maybe switch in the next semester, go to a beef operation. … I’ve had some of our local farm folks indicate that they would enjoy and look forward to that.”
The barriers to the farm’s success, says Masterson, were multiple.
From a logistics perspective, it was always difficult to schedule classes for students who needed to get to the farm and then back to campus for another class in a space of 55 minutes.
Plus, said Masterson, “what we were finding is that the cycle of a farm and farm operations are not always in sync with academic semesters and textbooks,” making it a less-than-perfect pedagogical tool.
 The goal, too, of engaging the handful of resident students as swine or beef or land “supervisors,” harbored a number of inbuilt challenges on its own. Most basically, said Masterson, “we found that the students, who were coming to us as freshmen, just didn’t have the background or weren’t quite ready for that kind of leadership.” And so, in time, those responsibilities devolved to the college’s farm manager, defeating entirely the purpose of the exercise.
Repeated instances of alcohol use on the college farm were not insignificant factors in the board’s 5-1 decision to dispose of the farm. Trustee Jenny Spillman was Tuesday’s lone dissenting vote.
And while Masterson is quick to point out that education is not a business, that the college isn’t in it to make money, “I’ve always been very aware of how we spend our dollars.
“And when the folks start cutting back at the state level, I start looking at where the money is going and where we can be more efficient.”
The farm currently costs the college in excess of $100,000 — which includes the upkeep of facilities, maintaining a farm manager, the expenses associated with work-study, the cost of equipment and the care of livestock. For the 2013-14 year, the farm’s total income was $12,473, its expenses $109,193. The following year, as of June 2015, revenue was $16,103 and expenses $103,941.
According to Masterson, as the facilities and equipment continue to age, ACC’s expenses will only increase.
It’s in the interests of the students and the longevity of the agriculture program as a whole, he argues, to direct the college’s energy and resources to wiser, more pointed ends and toward programs that could benefit a greater number of students.
Masterson has high praise for the many benefits the Zahn family has bestowed on ACC over the years and is hopeful that the four agriculture scholarships, which were established in memory of Ed Zahn, a former ag instructor at Iola High School, can be adapted for the agriculture student who enrolls at ACC next year.
The college hopes to conduct the sale shortly after the end of this school year. In the most recent appraisal, the farmland — 236 acres, with two ponds — was valued at $578,000, the Zahn house at $117,248, and the farm manager’s home was listed at $48,015.
“I’m looking at this as a very positive thing,” reflected Masterson, “but I’ve got a little bit of a heavy heart. It’s hard to give up something that has been a part of the college for that many years. But, you know, it’s the old adage: ‘If you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’re going to continue to get what you’ve always got.’ And what we want is a more robust enrollment in our ag program, because we’re still very committed to a good, strong ag education.
“If I didn’t believe that this would be a positive or beneficial thing for us, I guarantee I wouldn’t do it.”