The University of Idaho has worked on plans for a sustainable agriculture project, the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (CAFE) and in late June, UI researchers received a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for CAFE. The USDA dairy industry plans to have a net-zero impact on the environment by 2050. CAFE will work towards that goal.
The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant will fund research, teaching and outreach activities, according to Mark McGuire, the associate dean and director of Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station. The NIFA grant is intended to find ways to make the dairy industry more sustainable by supporting research of biological products from dairy waste streams.
CAFE is working to evaluate the sustainability of agriculture in Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. The project, funded by the grant, will focus on all aspects of dairy, including dairy-related crop production, science and technology, McGuire said.
“There is a need and opportunity for CAFE for research purposes, but it will also be expanded into a tremendous teaching opportunity for anyone across a number of disciplines,” McGuire said. “You can come and see work to aid agriculture in supporting the environment.”
Processing dairy and raw food ingredients, like potatoes and sugar beets, is an important part of Idaho’s economy, McGuire said.
CAFE will be available for anybody from UI to utilize. McGuire said the goal is to grow CAFE into a statewide entity, serving as a research center and providing outreach to the public. The College of Agriculture and the College of Business Economics will both support the project in order to manage financial risk, McGuire said. The College of Engineering will also be involved.
“It’s really to improve animal health and wellbeing, which is tied to whether or not a cow is making milk to a certain extent,” McGuire said. “And CAFE really brings into play.”
CAFE will give those in the dairy industry chances to work with technology and understand dairy-related robotics to better the safe and sustainable production of dairy products.
Reaching the USDA’s 2050 net-zero impact goal will take a tremendous amount of research and new technologies, McGuire said. The dairy industry will need to demonstrate it’s a good component of the environment instead of a danger. McGuire said CAFE will help meet these needs.
CAFE will have bases at the Jerome Outreach Center, a Twin Falls food processing plant and a crop production location in Rupert. The project plans to welcome its first visitors by 2023 and milk its first dairy cows on-site by 2024.
Emily Pearce can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Emily_A_Pearce