Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig announced today (Thursday) the recipients of Choose Iowa Dairy Innovation Grants, which aim to enhance on-farm dairy processing and incorporate labor-saving technology. Among the 20 dairies, Chad Fertig of Wall Lake received $35,000 to expand the milking parlor at the Fertig family farm. The Choose Iowa Dairy Innovation Grant Program is part of a broader initiative to promote local Iowa products and assists dairies in acquiring new processing equipment or adopting labor-saving technology. Recipients were selected through a competitive process, with grant requests exceeding available funding. Projects funded include on-farm processing enhancements and the implementation of various labor-reducing technologies such as milking robots, individual cow monitoring systems, and automated feed pushers. The program was created to support smaller dairies and farmers, requiring recipients to have fewer than 50 employees and be in good standing with regulatory agencies. With each project matched up to $100,000, the overall budget of $750,000 leverages an investment of over $2.2 million across the 20 awarded grants. A complete list of recipients is included below.
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Cinnamon Ridge | Donahue | $6,023.30
Utilize a Clean Out of Place unit to sanitize cheese making equipment more efficiently.
Total Project Budget: $12,046.60
Country View Dairy | Hawkeye | $6,750
Introduce conveyor belt and rotary packoff turntable to more efficiently package products.
Total Project Budget: $13,500
Hightail | Plainfield | $19,485.78
Build on-site space for processing milk for bottling and cheese curds.
Total Project Budget: $41,312.12
Picket Fence Creamery | Woodward | $100,000
Replace vat pasteurizer with HTST (high temperature short time) pasteurizer and chiller.
Total Project Budget: $201,450
WW Homestead Dairy | Waukon | $11,250
Purchase new cheese curd mill to expand their frozen breaded cheese curd line.
Total Project Budget: $22,500
Labor Reducing Technology
A&J Farms | Fort Atkinson | $17,180.63
OptiDuo Feed Pusher
Total Project Budget: $34,361.26
Anderegg Farms | Guttenberg | $77,184.31
Automatic Takeoffs
Total Project Budget: $154,368.61
Chad Fertig | Wall Lake | $35,000
Expansion of Dairy Parlor
Total Project Budget: $79,710.56
Enyart Dairy | Postville | $13,337.50
Juno Flex Feed Pusher
Total Project Budget: $26,675
Kenneth Steffen Dairy | New Vienna | $100,000
New milking parlor, milking parlor equipment, and milk room equipment
Total Project Budget: $816,450.64
Kruse Dairy | Dyersville | $57,654.20
CowManager ear tag based individual cow monitoring system
Total Project Budget: $115,308.40
Lango Dairy | Hopkinton | $26,575
Milk Taxi & Alta Cow Watch Activity System
Total Project Budget: $53,154.93
Lehman Dairy | Sherrill | $22,063
CowManager ear tag based individual cow monitoring system
Total Project Budget: $44,126.60
Nedved Family Farms | Garner | $100,000
Lely A5 Milking Robots
Total Project Budget: $342,939.52
Piggott Hills Farm | Waukon | $10,490
SCR Cow Health Monitoring System
Total Project Budget: $20,980
Prairie Star Farm | Waukon | $42,000
Lely Discovery Collectors
Total Project Budget: $42,579
Schulte Dairy | Norway | $43,179
Lely Discovery Collector
Total Project Budget: $77,858
Strief Farms | Farley | $20,047
Feed Watch & Rumination Collars
Total Project Budget: $20,047
Whitford Dairy | Volga | $24,667.50
SCR Health Monitoring System and Lely Juno Flex Robotic Feed Pusher
Total Project Budget: $49,335
Wolf Dairy | Epworth | $11,125
Farmfit Cow Health Monitoring System
Total Project Budget: $22,250
