DairyCo

DairyCo Research Advisory Forum

The DairyCo Research Advisory Forum brings together appointed, forward-thinking dairy farmers and researchers to debate the future needs of the sector and drive an associated research programme to deliver the answers to the identified dairy farming challenges.

The goal is to generate the knowledge required to ensure dairy farming businesses are sustainable and profitable in an increasingly volatile economic climate.

Why an Research Advisory Forum?

• DairyCo recognises and appreciates that in order to have a thriving industry, a proactive approach to research and development (R&D) is fundamental.
• DairyCo strives to provide GB dairy farmers with focussed R&D activities that deliver genuine grass roots solutions that can be applied to any production system.
• Dairy related research is ever-declining as the various funding bodies withdraw monies from production (strategic and fundamental) related commissions. This has resulted in less opportunity for industry contact with dairy related researchers. These researchers are constantly monitoring world-wide scientific progress in dairy related activities which assists our industry in being at the cutting edge of technological advancement.
• DairyCo is often challenged by leading dairy farmers regarding the limited longer-term, exploratory research being funded and this research is fundamental for the future success of our dairy sector.

What will the Research Advisory Forum do?

• Debate scientific challenges in the dairy sector.
• Identify the key challenges that are likely to face the dairy sector in the future (5 - 10 years).
• Prioritise identified issues.
• Provide the opportunity to brainstorm potential solutions to the agreed issues based on existing knowledge.
• Agree a focused work programme on selected issues in order to achieve desired outcomes for implementation by the R&D.
• Importantly, the forum must achieve answers to the prioritised issues.