Dairy Innovation Hub Set For Success

The Dairy Innovation Hub is wrapping up its fiscal year and making funding decisions for the next one that starts in July. Program manager Maria Woldt says those decisions include 53 new research projects and eight new staff.

Woldt also praised the Joint Finance Committee’s extension of $7.8 million per year in funding for the hub in the 2021-23 state budget.

A sample of the new research projects happening at the three-campus hub include looking at forage “cocktails” impact on milk yields, cybersecurity on farms, consumer preferences of milk versus other beverages and the impact of cross breeding dairy and beef cattle breeds.

Woldt says more than researchers and lawmakers should take interest in the hub, which is funded by taxpayer dollars. The four key areas of the hub impact all Wisconsinites, she said. These are land and water, farm business and community, human health, and animal welfare.

Woldt added it doesn’t matter if Wisconsin residents are farming or not, new research coming out of UW-Madison, UW-Platteville and UW-River Falls as part of the hub will help keep the state’s rural communities strong.