By Hinman Straub, Special to NEAFA
This year, a number of agriculture related groups joined Cornell in asking for a significant state investment support “Net Zero Dairy”. While many of the funding streams and programs included in this proposal are not new, but steady or moderately increased investments in those programs, the focus of the new investments is being directly focused and linked to the investments and changes needed to support farms, farmers and agriculture related programs in the transition to emission reduction and evenly net zero.
New York has set strong goals around greenhouse gas reduction, maintaining clean water and other environmental targets. To best serve the New York State economy, New York dairy farmers should be the primary providers of the milk needed to support the first goal. To do so and remain strong environmental stewards and partners for the state, a significant investment in the transition to net zero is needed.
To support these changes, NEAFA is seeking support for the following investments as a part of this package. Some of the components of this package include:
$2.463 million total PRO-DAIRY funding The Executive budget proposal would provide $1.463 million for Pro Dairy, an amount equal to last year’s enacted budget. NEAFA, with partners is seeking and additional $1 million. If appropriated, the funding would be utilized as follows:
• $500,000 would fund four new positions.
o Two Farm Business Management specialists
o One Dairy Nutrition specialist.
o One Animal Well-Being specialist.
• $500,000 for applied research and extension support.
These positions and the research that would be supported are critical to addressing the unique needs of the dairy industry and the knowledge and information needed to reduce diary related emissions while also protecting that health of cows and maintaining production.
$1.190 million in total funding for Dairy Profit Teams. The Executive proposal would continue to provide $700,000 for the Dairy Advancement Program (DAP) and $374,000 for Dairy Profit Teams, which is constant with the funding provided in the last enacted budget. However, demand for the services offered by these programs exceeds the supply supported by current funds. DAP funds are used by small farmers that are seeking to grow their businesses and adapt to the current financial and business environment. Along with partners we are seeing an addition investment of $150,000 in this program.
$750,000 for the Cornell University Ruminant Center (CURC). CURC is the leading American university dairy research facility that is best equipped to conduct studies at the scale needed to identify strategies that will improve the production of milk and milk-components, decrease the intensity of GHG emissions, and safely evaluate the true capabilities of what the dairy industry can accomplish while improving milk production efficiency and mitigating climate-related challenges. This funding would be a new state investment.
$1M to establish a Dairy Foods Innovation Hub. Building on Dairy Promotion Order Funds to create an Innovation Hub would create a platform to develop new dairy products, while increasing processing capacity, training the next generation of entrepreneurs and increasing access to local foods. This funding would be a new state investment.