Kansas State Collegian, KS
03/17/06
Grain complex in midst of construction
Jaci Boydston
Kansas State Collegian
The Department of Grain Science and Industry is in the middle of a makeover that will last more than a decade.
As the only program in the nation to offer bachelor’s degrees in baking, feed and milling science and management, the department is constructing a five-building,
$77 million complex that will replace out-of-date facilities and help K-State remain an industry leader.
The new Grain Science and Industry Complex, which will sit on 16 acres on the north side of Kimball Avenue, will include an International Grains Program Center
(IGP), Bioprocessing and Industrial Value-Added Center (BIVAC), flour mill, feed mill, and teaching, research and baking building. The IGP building and the
BIVAC are completed, and the Hal Ross Flour Mill will be finished by fall 2006, said Ron Madl, grain science and industry administrator.
Improved facilities are instrumental in recruiting students, Madl said.
“In the middle of the last century, K-State’s grain science program was the epitome of this particular industry,” Madl said. “As we neared the end of the last century, we began to see a decline in our enrollments.”
Madl said the decline was linked to out-of-date facilities. For example, the current feed mill is more than 40 years old and does not have many of the technological advances necessary to make it an industry leader, said Joel
Newman, American Feed Industry Association president.
Since the IGP building and the BIVAC opened in 2004 and 2005, respectively, grain science enrollment numbers have increased. Spring 2006 enrollment increased 16 percent from the previous semester, with 47 undergraduate students in baking science, 75 in milling science and 40 in feed science, Virgil
Smail, grain science department head, said.
Although the other buildings will serve existing programs in the grain science department, the creation of the BIVAC addresses a new field, and brings K-State in step with peer institutions with similar centers, like Iowa State University , the
University of Nebraska and Oklahoma State University. BIVAC research involves turning agricultural products into higher-value products, like ethanol and other bio-fuels.

The BIVAC was originally scheduled to be the last building constructed, Madl said, but the State Legislature felt Kansas needed a research facility to explore the field of value-added products sooner. It donated $7 million to the university to build the center, half of which must be paid back, Madl said.
Faculty began planning the new complex in 1997, and the final building is expected to be complete by 2009. Because the complex will be funded largely on private donations and government support, raising funds has been the biggest issue slowing progress, Smail said.
The department’s biggest task will be raising the $50 million needed to build the teaching, research and baking building, which is five to 10 times the estimated cost of each of the others in the complex. The building will be the largest in the complex, housing technologically up-to-date classrooms, offices, teaching and research laboratories and conference rooms, according to the complex’s building prospectus.
It will also use the university’s satellite connection to communicate with businesses and programs across the world and conduct distance education classes.
The grain science department is actively soliciting donations from people and businesses in the industry
— it needs $60 million to complete the feed mill and the teaching, research and baking building, according to the building prospectus.
The department has previously received financial support from the Kansas
Wheat, Corn and Soybean commissions and private donors like Wichita attorney
Hal Ross, for whom the flour mill is named. Madl said the department expects to receive industry donations to build the feed mill and federal or state funding for the teaching, research and baking building.
Smail said the complex will continue to increase K-St ate’s standing in the grain science field, particularly with the addition of the BIVAC and the research conducted there.
“The complex already is improving our reputation and our ability to address some key new technological areas,” Smail said. “The fact that we have these new facilities allows us to be a leader.”