UMO breaks ground on new Livestock Education Center

MOUNT OLIVE — The weather did not cooperate for a traditional groundbreaking ceremony, but the rain did not dampen the spirits of the estimated 100 guests attending an indoor version of a groundbreaking to celebrate a new 34,000-square-foot educational livestock facility that will be a major part of the University of Mount Olive School of Agriculture and Biological Sciences. The new building will be constructed on the university’s 79-acre farm on Shady Grove Road just outside of Mount Olive.

The new facility will include space for training and animal-handling facilities, as well as an egg and meat processing facility. It will also house an indoor meeting space. At the same location, 50 acres will become home to grazing for several species of farm animals.

In an interview with Duplin Journal at the event, University of Mount Olive President H. Edward Croom said the location of the university makes it an ideal location for expansion of the School of Agriculture and Biological Sciences.

“If you look around us, we’ve got lots of livestock production around us,” Croom said. “You’ve got Butterball, House of Raeford and Case Farms. Eastern North Carolina is huge in feeding many, many parts of the world. We believe we are poised here because there is nothing between Greenville, N.C. State and Wilmington. We’re the university between them that has an ag component.”

Croom added that the construction of the facility is good timing, considering the success of the university’s agricultural-related programs.

“Last year, we had students from 80 of the 100 counties in North Carolina. We’re not just Wayne County and Duplin County. Our footprint has grown.

One of the contributors toward the building of the new facility is the North Carolina Farm Bureau. The organization’s president, Shawn Harding, told Duplin Journal that not only is animal agriculture an important part of the state, but it’s still growing.

“We know in the agricultural world that 70 percent of our gate receipts here is from animal agriculture, the whole gambit, obviously pork and poultry, and we’ve gotten more involved with cattle as well,” Harding said. “It’s growing in North Carolina.”

In addition to the N.C. Farm Bureau, other major contributors to the new facility, include B & S Enterprises, the Golden LEAF Foundation, the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, Mule City Specialty Feeds and the N.C. General Assembly.

In remarks at the event, Croom said the new educational livestock facility is just phase one of plans for the Shady Grove Road farm location. Plans also include building small-animal facilities and a commodity processing space.

Croom told Duplin Journal that looking far into the future, he has what he referred to as “Croom’s dream,” a veterinary medical school at the university. UMO currently is sending three or four students a year to the N.C. State School of Veterinary Medicine through its ag programs. There are currently only 33 veterinary medical schools in the United States.