Deans from the University of Wisconsin System’s three leading agriculture programs were in Grantsburg on Tuesday promoting new funding from state lawmakers aimed at helping the Wisconsin’s struggling dairy industry.
The deans of UW-Madison’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, UW-Platteville’s College of Business, Industry, Life Science and Agriculture and UW-River Fall’s College of Agriculture Food and Environmental Sciences toured a 1,000-cow, robotic dairy operation in Grantsburg owned by UW Board of Regent member Cris Peterson.
The event was aimed at promoting how the campuses plan to spend $8.8 million in Dairy Innovation Hub funding allocated in the 2019-2021 state biennial budget. According to data from UW System administration, $1 million of the funds will be available this year and will pay for postdoctoral research fellowship positions at Madison. It will also fund lab equipment and staffing for research programs at all three campuses.
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Starting in 2020, the universities will split $7.8 million in funding that could pay for as many as 26 new faculty research positions.
UW-Madison Dean Kate VandenBosch said one of the key concepts of the Dairy Innovation Hub will be focusing on research that goes beyond improving milk production on farms.
“One of the things I’m most excited about is can we tap into the waste stream from dairy and come up with new products either for biomedical applications, manufacturing, energy, specialty chemicals that will really be a paradigm shift and move the industry further,” said VandenBosch
UW-River Falls Dean Dale Gallenberg said the new initiative will link the state’s leading agriculture researchers in a way they haven’t been before.
“Ideally, the hub serves as an example, a model for how UW System and the regents and the Legislature will fund initiatives and expect collaboration,” said Gallenberg.
When asked about whether the Dairy Innovation Hub will aid small farms in Wisconsin in light of comments from U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that small operations will need to scale up in order to survive, UW-Platteville Dean Wayne Weber said they’re already working with producers small and large.
“Let’s look at these issues from a data-informed standpoint, which is what can contribute as opposed to rhetoric and anecdote,” Weber said. “And by doing that and working together we can start to address what is the optimal way for our farmers to move forward.”
The Dairy Innovation Hub funding comes two years after Wisconsin led the nation in farm bankruptcies.
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