ABOUT THE DAIRY FOUNDATION

The Northeast Iowa Dairy Foundation is a nonprofit, grassroots organization born from the foresight and community concern of dairy farm families and related businesses who identified a need to retain young people in rural areas while bolstering the economic impact of dairy farms in northeast Iowa through education, demonstration and research.

In 2000, the foundation opened the one-of-a-kind Dairy Center that includes an educational facility and two operating dairy farms, a freestall-style barn with 190 cows and a grass-based setup with 75 cows. The Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) and Iowa State University (ISU) partner with the foundation’s Dairy Center, and students enrolled in the dairy program at the near-by NICC campus in Calmar provide a large portion of the farm’s labor as a component of their hands-on educational experience. The foundation impacts active dairy producers by hosting informational seminars through ISU extension services.

As a community outreach and educational effort, the foundation has hosted over 5,000 area grade school children at the Dairy Center to learn about the Iowa Dairy Story, visit our museum and take an up-close look at how milk from our cows ends up on their school lunch tray.

Counties served by the Northeast Iowa Community Dairy Foundation include: Allamakee, Black Hawk, Bremer, Butler, Buchanan, Chickasaw, Clayton, Delaware, Dubuque, Fayette, Floyd, Grundy, Howard, Jackson, Jones, Mitchell and Winneshiek.