Dick Battaglia, head of the UI’s Department of Animal and Veterinary Science and superintendent of the Cummings Center, anticipates that multi-disciplinary groups of College of Agriculture faculty and students will begin conducting integrated projects at the ranch next year.

"We’ll address real-world, real-time issues facing the producers of cattle and forages in this regional ecosystem," says Battaglia. "We’ll use an integrated approach just as producers use integrated approaches when they manage their ranches."

Projects may include sustainable cow-calf production, irrigation management, water quality, forage production, alternative crops, public land management, ecology, and economic development and modeling.

Shannon Williams, UI extension educator in Lemhi County, says the Cummings Center will "give us a chance to do some very applicable research and demonstration work that people can come out and see for themselves. Producers are looking for new technology and new ways of doing things that will make their operations as efficient as possible."

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The ranch will operate with the counsel of a producers’ advisory group and will hold periodic field days for the public.

The University of Idaho, College of Southern Idaho and other universities will also offer courses–both credit and non-credit–in a multi-purpose building to be constructed on the site by 2003. In addition, the Cummings Center will host short courses, Cooperative Extension workshops and youth programs designed to meet community needs.

The University of Idaho will lease the ranch for $1 a year from the Auen Foundation for the next three years. If the Cummings Center meets mutually agreed-upon performance expectations, the foundation will transfer ownership to the university through a four-year gifting process between 2004 and 2007.