WCMA Invests in Dairy’s Future with UW-River Falls Gift

Feb 19, 2025

By Grace Atherton

Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) proudly announced today that it will direct $90,000 to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls (UW-RF) to establish a fund investing in dairy operations, training, and research and development initiatives at the university’s Wuethrich Family/Grassland Dairy Center of Excellence. The donation comes from funds generated by WCMA’s annual Championship Cheese Auction, where members of industry bid on best-in-class cheeses in a shared effort to support the future of dairy processing.

“Through both financial and in-kind contributions, WCMA and its members have been proud to support the next generation of our industry at UW-River Falls. It’s a pleasure to continue our tradition of investing in dairy’s future with this donation. We’re extremely grateful to the generous bidders at our annual Championship Cheese Auction, who have made this effort possible, and to the WCMA Board of Directors for their leadership and vision in the direction of these funds,” said WCMA Executive Director John Umhoefer.

The new Wuethrich Family/Grassland Dairy Center of Excellence Fund aims to enable the UW-RF Dairy Pilot Plant to provide hands-on learning opportunities for students; increase the number and frequency of dairy education and training seminars; and connect dairy processors with production, training, and research opportunities at the plant.

“This generous and meaningful contribution from the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association will have an immediate impact on our plant’s operational success,” said Mike Orth, dean of the UWRF College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences. “The infusion of new financial resources will allow us to expand our plant staff and enhance our production, research and development capabilities, all while providing our students with hands-on experiential learning and employment opportunities. In addition, we can strengthen our dairy industry partnerships by offering more training workshops and certification courses featuring the state-of-the-art plant.”

“Throughout our plant renovation process into our full-scale production, the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association and its members have been there for us, providing the crucial investments needed to ensure the facility’s success,” said Rick Foy, UWRF assistant chancellor for University Advancement. “On behalf of our students, faculty and staff, I express deep appreciation to WCMA Executive Director John Umhoefer for leading his organization’s continued and enthusiastic support for the Wuethrich Family/Grassland Center of Excellence.

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”