Proposed Univ of Idaho livestock research center passes feasibility review

A long-awaited livestock research facility got the go-ahead in a new feasibility study commissioned by the University of Idaho. A large focus of the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment will be sustainable milk production. It would include a 2,000-cow dairy with robotic milking machines and 1,000 acres of associate cropland and employ wastewater treatment and nutrient recovery systems.It would also allow for a food processing facility, offer laboratory space and provide housing for faculty, staff and students.“It would be the most modern and largest research dairy in the U.S. and likely in the world,” said University of Idaho President Chuck Staben.Taking into consideration land costs, capital costs of construction, production cost, milk prices and research grants and contracts, the feasibility study showed the facility could operate at a “net-zero-type cost” for the first five or six years, he said.The price tag to purchase land, build the facility and get it operating is $45 million. Gov. Butch Otter and the Legislature have committed $10 million to the project, with $5 million more in the offing. It’s up to the university to find the other $30 million, both internally and externally, he said.The study also indicated that buying land and building the dairy was a better way to go than buying an existing dairy and retrofitting it for research, he said.