This $1,150,000 Project Grant award from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture's (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program supports the development and assessment of a data-driven system to optimize individualized feed formulations for dairy farms. The objectives are to:
- Complete development of an anomaly detection system that uses real-time animal performance data to discover individual amino acid requirements and formulate custom diets,
- Evaluate the economic and environmental impacts of this system on four dairy farms, and
- Develop extension programming to improve producer and nutritionist understanding of nutrient efficiency, dairy profitability, and environmental sustainability.
The project will be conducted by a team from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, with sub-awards to Colorado State University, Emory University, and the University of Idaho to contribute expertise in dairy nutrition, data analytics, and agricultural extension. The goal is to enable more precise feeding to increase dairy production, profitability, and environmental stewardship by accounting for individual animal variation.
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