The province's new $25-million dairy research facility set to open this spring

Sunday, June 7, 2015

First proposed 10 years ago, the Livestock Research and Innovation Centre - Dairy Facility has had to surmount many hurdles – from fundraising difficulties to complex construction regulations and weather delays. Now, it's ready to undertake 'all kinds of new and exciting things' for Ontario's $2-billion dairy sector

by MARY BAXTER

The Livestock Research and Innovation Centre - Dairy Facility near Elora has been years in the making, but this spring the grinding and hammering of construction equipment will finally give way to the tranquil swish of cow tails, according to those involved in the project.

Wes Lane, special advisor, Innovative Partnership and Research for Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO), says the need for a new dairy research facility in Ontario was raised 10 years ago when it was recognized that the current provincially-owned facility at Elora, opened in 1970 and operated by the University of Guelph, was out of date.

Talks snowballed about four years ago, resulting in the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs putting $20 million towards the project through its research arm, the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario. The money came with the condition that the industry also contribute to the project and, in 2013, DFO pledged $1 million and also committed to raising $4 million more from industry partners.

As they would find out, though, nothing about the project would be easy. The first hurdle came when DFO joined fundraising forces with the university, only to discover many potential contributors had already made some big commitments to the university's Better Planet campaign, Lane said in January. Lane is leading the industry fundraising.

So DFO set its sights on a new funding prospect – the federal government. Discussions began, and in January federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada would contribute $3 million under the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program. The remaining amount comes from more than 30 industry partners.

For Remo Pallottini, facility manager for the university's Office of Research, the project has been considerably more complex than building a commercial dairy operation.

"There are certain other regulation drivers that guide the type of facilities we can use and our management practices," he explained. The Canadian Council of Animal Care, a federal body that issues guidelines for managing research animals is one; the provincial Animals for Research Act is another.

Moreover, although the building is agricultural, the construction project is classified institutional. That has meant large committees of people to tackle everything from the development process, building components and designs to budgets. A public process has also been in place to select designers, consultants and contractors.

Choosing a location on the province's 1,600-acre Elora property was a rather painful process of elimination. "Once we took away all the minimum distances from neighbouring properties, and stayed away from long-term crop areas and a high voltage corridor going through the property, it's surprising how fast 1,600 acres got eaten up," Pallottini noted. Site location constraints also affected the layout of the facility, which has ended up in a Y-shape.

While $25 million might seem like a lot of money for a dairy facility, it can get spent quickly, and debates about how to juggle materials and wish lists have been intense. Pallottini used the example of a proposal early on to add an extra square foot along the building's width. It amounted to an extra 1,200 square feet of construction and materials. "That's a cost and therefore what are you going to cut" to accommodate it?   

How to meet fire codes took a lot of planning, as did adding stray voltage protection, a major consideration. Grounding is "extensive," said Pallottini.

Construction was originally slated to begin in May 2013, but delays pushed that date to August and then it started to rain. "I don't think it really stopped raining through that season," Pallottini recalled. The rain gave way to the incredibly long and cold winter of 2013/14. Another tough winter in 2014/15 meant that a project once estimated to take 12 to 14 months stretched far beyond the original timelines.

The facility is divided into several key areas, including special needs, milk harvest, calf rooms and pens, a dry cow section and a maternity unit that can also be used for intensive care.

The main lactating housing contains eight pens of 30 for a total of 240 animals. Two of the pens have access to a milking robot so that either 30 or 60 cows can connect to the technology, depending on the type of research that's being done.

Chimney fans that can measure the volume of exhaust in order to overcome differences from wind tunnels or air pressure help to create a balanced, consistent environment and eliminate any variants during research trials. The fans are commonly used in poultry facilities.

One side of the lactating facility will offer feed intake monitoring to track each cow's eating activities. In the section where replacements and heifers are housed, there will also be storage and a location for the composter.

PVC (polyvinyl chloride) internal siding is used extensively throughout. Of the facility's 175,000 square feet, "our PVC use is somewhere in the 300,000 square feet range," Pallottini said.

Other features include:

• A 24 tie-stall metabolic wing for more intensive work, where stalls are extra large to allow the use of measurement instruments;
• An extra large feed preparation area to assemble different research mixes;
• A 24-bale rotary parlour as well as other smaller milking systems for the metabolic and maternity areas;
• Labs to prepare samples;
• A milk fractionation section for research into further processing;
• Extensive staff facilities;
• An elevated 8,000-gallon milk tank incorporated at the request of DFO (who want its performance and feasibility for pumping milk into a tanker assessed), as well as a smaller 800-gallon tank to allow for separate milk storage for research activities.

Quota loaned to the station from DFO will be roughly 40 per cent more than the quota currently assigned to the dairy research capacity in the area (which includes the old facility adjacent to the new one and another small dairy a few kilometres away).

In late March, Pallottini estimated it would be roughly four weeks before the university could assume occupancy. "Then we can start our own fit-up inside. We have to outfit it with all of our equipment before we can actually start moving cattle in."

Final touches to the exterior, such as paving, were scheduled to begin in May.  

No firm decisions have been made about the building it replaces. Activities that will take place once the new facility is in operation include traditional cow-side research, such as health, reproduction and nutrition research. As well, it's expected the facility will become the "go-to" place for studying and fostering new management practices, Lane said, referring to subject areas such as life cycle emission reductions, animal well-being and the development of value-added components.

Nor will research conducted there be done exclusively by University of Guelph researchers. "It's going to be important that there be collaboration with other researchers in other institutions so we bring the very best of the ideas forward and get projects going on those," Lane said.

Dairy is big business in Ontario, Lane said, noting that the more than $2 billion the sector brings in annually accounts for about 20 per cent of the province's gross farm revenue. Having a new research facility to help support the sector will "provide lots of opportunity to look at all kinds of new and exciting things." BF