Close to 30 state, agriculture and dairy organisations have written to US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to object to a new rule for the Dairy Business Innovation (DBI) Initiatives, which link dairy businesses with specialised expertise and resources, Farms.com reported.
Starting in fiscal year 2026, the rule makes the four regional centres, at the University of Tennessee, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, the University of Wisconsin and California State University, Fresno, responsible for matching 25% of their federal funding, up to $1 million. Since the initiatives were created in the 2018 Farm Bill, Congress has paid the whole cost. About $12.65 million is available for DBI projects, with the application window open until 1 December; split equally, each centre would receive $3.16 million and have to find $790,000 of its own.
"The new cost-share requirement puts that effective model at risk," says the 12 October letter, whose signatories include the National Milk Producers Federation and the Midwest Dairy Coalition. "The four existing initiatives are housed at public universities, a state department of agriculture, and a university/industry partnership. They do not have resources available to satisfy a 25 percent match, and they do not directly benefit from any dollars awarded."
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin said in a separate letter that USDA was "adding a financial condition that Congress never intended and that could effectively bring a successful, bipartisan program to an end".
The programme supports practical upgrades on dairy farms and in small processors. Hansen's Dairy in Hudson, Iowa, for example, used support to buy a new bottle-filler and cheese press, and Milkhaus Dairy in Fennimore, Wisconsin, funded a feasibility study on product and market opportunities.
Photo: Corey Coyle / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Farms.com
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