(CN) — An unremarkable conference room at the Idaho statehouse — one used to host land board meetings that typically drum up as much enthusiasm as one would expect from such administrative gatherings — hosted something unusual for the space this autumn: a cheering crowd.
What turned this often dry setting into a place of pure celebration? Not the passage of landmark legislation or news that some partisan agenda had found new footing, but the hard-fought approval to build what is set to be the largest experimental farm of its kind in the entire nation.
Meet CAFE — the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment — a dairy facility being developed on 640 acres of farmland in south-central Idaho near the town of Rupert in the heart of the state’s dairy industry. Once developed and operational, CAFE will pursue a goal crucial to both Idaho and the world at large: to research and solve the biggest challenges facing the dairy sector.
CAFE is being developed by the University of Idaho, which was recently given the thumbs up to use $23 million to buy the farmland.
The dream of greenlighting a project of this size and scope was not easily fulfilled. There have been at least four attempts to get CAFE off the ground, including one where the university was offered $10 million in state funding to get things underway. But that offer came in 2009, in the midst of a crippling economic recession and, unable to get all dominos lined up in time, the university couldn't pull the trigger.
But bigger buy-ins and engagement, including from university administrators, support from the dairy community and changes to federal law that freed up endowment money to be used on brick-and-mortar projects allowed the most recent attempt to succeed.
Mark McGuire, associate dean at the university’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said as CAFE is developed, it’s important to reflect on why it’s being created in the first place.
“We have to justify what we’re doing, to address the concerns of the industry and the needs of the industry, and one of those is sustainability of agriculture in total,” McGuire said. “For the dairy industry, they have a goal of having a net zero impact of greenhouse gases by 2050 and they need a facility like this dairy in Rupert to answer those questions.”
The project has environmental hurdles that threaten its long-term goals. The scores of animals will add to greenhouse gas emissions and operating a dairy with sometimes thousands of cows can leave the land and water polluted.
It’s here where CAFE is getting ready to be put to work. Researchers want to use the facility to explore exactly how dairying harms the underlying soil and what strategies could be used to mitigate that harm.
“We’re taking soil tests down to bedrock at approximately every 0.4 acres on these plots so we’re able to really understand what the characteristics of the soil are,” McGuire said. “Then, when we get cows on the site, we will apply manure or manure byproducts or extracted nutrients to really look at what the impacts are on the soil characteristics.”
Josh Johnson, senior conservation associate for the Idaho Conservation League, said the project has also found favor with conservationists in Idaho. Operating a dairy of any size, let alone a research facility billed as the largest of its kind in the United States, comes with a huge environmental footprint. But Johnson believes when the grander picture is taken into consideration, CAFE will more than prove its worth.
“This project should be a net benefit, in terms of what we gain in terms of research and new techniques,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of diaries in the Magic Valley, some with 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 cows them. This is a 1,000- to 2,000-cow dairy that’s being operated under very controlled conditions. So I think in the long term, we need a project like this.”
Follow @@CarsonAndLloyd
