A career in agriculture can start in many different ways, for James Downey it began at his family’s farm, Sundown Farms near Reedsville. He never questioned whether or not he should pursue a career within the ag community, but more of what side of the industry he wanted to specialize in. After growing up on the farm raising beef cattle, pigs, and other livestock, he also helped on farms around the area. Out of high school, he went to UW-Madison to earn a degree in Dairy Science, which led to him being hired by CP Feeds as a nutritionist out of college.
“Nutrition is a varied career, that’s for sure. Every day is a little different and every customer is a little different that we work with,” James went on to explain what a nutritionist does exactly, “I spend most of my time working with dairy farmers and that entails going to the farm, walking the cows, it’s very important for us to see what the cows are telling us. We need to track production, we need to track forages on the farm, so it requires sampling, sending forages to the lab for analyses, and then we have a ration software program where we put everything into the computer and balance that ration.”
James said that the goal of a nutritionist is to make sure that every bite that the cow takes is part of a balanced diet. If you were explaining what a nutritionist is to someone who had no idea, they’re the dieticians of the farm. With that, nutritionists need to be very mindful of feed costs and what the return on investment is. “I’m responsible for the largest bill on the farm. The feed bill is typically the largest bill and labor’s right after it,” James said. One question he asks himself at each farm is, “are we getting money back for what we’re investing in the feed?”
He mentioned how being able to work with the farmer on management is a huge key to being successful in this career. “Even if a farm’s doing really well, there’s always something that we can do better. Same in our personal lives, even if things are going well, there’s always something we can do better,” says James. Communication is “absolutely critical” because he’s constantly communicating with the farmer and everyone else involved on the farm to better the operation.
As for the education required to become a nutritionist, James talked about how in today’s market you’ll need a Bachelor’s degree in anything revolved around animal sciences or dairy sciences. “That’s a good starting point, and then to be honest with you, it’s a lot of learning on the job,” James explained, “you only learn so much in school. There’s of course, nutrition courses in school, there’s some hands-on in college…but the vast majority you’ll learn on the job.” He said that at CP Feeds they’re lucky to have experienced nutritionists that are willing to help you get started.
For any career within the ag industry, there are going to be tough things to deal with, and for nutritionists, it’s no different. “Getting farmers through these last couple of years has been really difficult,” he said, “feed prices have been fluctuating, forage inventory hasn’t been the best on most farms. Certainly, let’s not talk about 2019 where it was just a disaster out in the fields.”
One other side of the job that can be difficult is trying to explain what’s going on in the ag industry to the general public, especially when it comes to what the animals are being fed. Contrary to what some organizations may say online, farm animals aren’t being fed anything that would hurt the consumers. He said it’s just frustrating to see people believe the misinformation revolved around animal agriculture.
James also has three parts of the profession that he loves. One is working with the animals because it’s been a passion of his as long as he can remember, another is the science that goes with the career, and number three is having the opportunity to work with so many people. “We never stop learning in this area and that’s what I love about it,” he explained. Those are three pillars within the job that go hand-in-hand.
His advice to anyone interested in an agriculture career is to start gaining experience working on a farm and grow from there. “I think practical experience like working on farms is huge and you can kind of figure out what goes on. If you can even get working on a farm and do maybe some of the feedings or at least follow along with the feeder,” he brought up more examples as well, “Milking cows is a great start or maybe taking care of baby calves is huge, that’s an incredibly important job. On-farm experience will get you very far in any career in ag.”
As far as specifically becoming a nutritionist, he advises those who are interested to dive into courses surrounding nutrition. He said that they may be tough, but they’re very informative and interesting. Another tip from James is to reach out to a local nutritionist and ride along with them a few times. This gives you a great opportunity to ask as many questions as you want about the career and see first-hand what a nutritionist does every day.
You can hear the full interview with James Downey on our podcast page.
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