Funds target dairy research

Monday, September 16, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

The national dairy research cluster has received $12 million in federal government funding that’s earmarked for work on milk production, cattle genetics and milk product nutrition.

Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and his Parliamentary Secretary, Pierre Lemieux, made the funding announcement Monday from a farm in Embrun.

Dairy Farmers of Canada spokesperson Therese Beaulieu says the government funding will be combined with dairy industry money of more than $6 million to provide a fund of about $18 million for the research cluster during the next five years. Of the dairy industry’s more than $6 million in funding, $5.3 million is from Dairy Farmers of Canada, $669,000 is from the Canadian Dairy Network and $750,000 from the Canadian Dairy Commission.

The federal government’s press release says the research cluster will focus on what the industry has identified as the highest priority work, and projects will be done by Canadian researchers in centres across the country. Beaulieu says they’re still finalizing which projects will get funding.

The previous cluster, which ran from 2010 to 2013, had government funding of $7 million and dairy industry money of $5 million. Beaulieu says the results of that work are being reported at dairy farmer meetings, through webinars, and through the DFC semi-annual report, Action Plus, that’s mailed to all farmers. In Ontario, farmers will be getting that report with their next Milk Producer magazine in October.

The projects in the current cluster will be different than the ones in the previous cluster but there will also be work that builds on previous research. For example, a project in the previous cluster studied ways to identify different kinds of mastitis. “That’s the research part,” she says. But another project needs to be done to develop some kind of quick test farmers can use on their farms.

The federal government’s $12 million in funding comes from Growing Forward 2, the national agricultural policy framework that came into effect April 1. Specifically, the money came from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s five-year, $698 million Agri Innovation program. BF