The Dairy Health, Efficiency & Resource Dynamics Initiative aims to support research that advances understanding of the interrelationships among dairy health, management and welfare, economics, and the environment.
Donor Name: Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/25/2025
Size of the Grant: $500,000 to $1 million
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The Dairy HERD Initiative is a partnership between FFAR, Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) and Zoetis to advance research that will enable U.S. Dairy and allied industry to better understand and use innovations to support improved animal health/management and welfare, economic viability and environmental outcomes. Recent reports suggest that improving the health of dairy cows in the U.S. could substantially improve the environmental outcomes associated with dairy production. Yet very little research has attempted to quantify the environmental impacts of improved animal health in dairy or to understand the tradeoffs and intersections with other aspects of livestock production, including the role of caretakers and economic aspects of herd management.
Dairy HERD will consider applications addressing one or more of the following objectives:
- Economics analyses related to potential reductions in the prevalence of animal health conditions in the context of the associated environmental outcomes; for example, performing cost-benefit analyses that consider the benefits of improved animal health and productivity, reduced costs of treatment and changes in replacement rate, in the context of financial incentive programs that could yield returns on investment.
- Develop or improve decision-support tools and/or models through an enhanced understanding of feedback loops and trade-offs amongst animal health and herd management, economics and environmental outcomes; for example, by developing conceptual, statistical or predictive models that advance whole-farm models or decision-support tools to inform evidence-based decision-making to improve animal health and environmental outputs. Integration into tools/models that have the potential for large-scale implementation by the dairy industry are strongly encouraged.
- Examine and quantify the impact of dairy cow and heifer health on environmental outcomes; for example, quantify, through empirical studies, the effects of prevalent health challenges such as lameness, mastitis and/or metritis, on environmental outcomes. Research results should be reported in widely accepted metrics such as total tons of emissions per cow per day or kg CO2-equivalents per kg fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM) using AR6 GWP100 metrics.
Funding Information
A total of US $1.3 million is available for this funding opportunity. Requests of $500,000 up to $1,000,000 per project will be considered.
Grant Period
Projects up to two years in length are eligible for funding.
Eligibility Criteria
- Dairy HERD welcomes applications from all domestic and international higher education institutions, nonprofit and for-profit organizations and government-affiliated research agencies.
- Any individual(s) with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to perform the proposed research as Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) may apply through their home institution or organization.
For more information, visit FFAR.
