NMPF’s annual scholarship fundraising raffle is now live, running through this year’s Joint Annual Meeting and concluding Oct. 23 when winners are announced.

Prizes this year include a $1,000 travel voucher, American Express gift cards, Target gift cards, a Cabot Creamery Ultimate Gift Box, and more. The raffle can be accessed here. Annual Meeting attendees also will have the chance to support the program by participating in a silent auction.

The NMPF National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Program supports Master’s and Ph.D. students conducting research important to dairy farmers. The scholarship program is largely funded through the raffle fundraiser and silent auction, making ticket purchases essential to its funding. Sustaining this program ensures that critical research benefiting dairy can continue.

Scholarship winners for 2024 selected by the NMPF Scholarship Committee included five graduate students conducting research in areas that will benefit dairy cooperatives and producers. Scholarships, announced to NMPF’s Board of Directors in June, were awarded to:

• Agustin Olivo, a doctoral candidate in Animal Science at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Olivo’s research focuses on evaluation and dissemination of system analysis tools and performance indicators to improve environmental outcomes of New York dairies.
• Ana Beatriz Montevecchio Bernardino, a doctoral candidate in Veterinary Clinical Sciences at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Montevecchio Bernardino is studying the effect of a novel non-steroidal anti-inflammatory formulation on welfare of Holstein cows challenged with E. coli.
• Grant Fincham, a master’s of science candidate in Ruminant Nutrition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Fincham’s research looks at whole animal energy utilization and manure biogas production in feeding dried distillers grains with solubles to lactating dairy cattle.
• Lynn Olthof, a doctoral candidate in Animal Science-Dairy Management at Michigan State University. Olthof is studying the economic implications of dairy farm management decisions.
• Megan Lauber, a doctoral candidate in Dairy Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lauber is investigating an integrated approach to optimize sexed semen in dairy herds.

NMPF is now accepting applications for its National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Program for academic year 2023-2024.

Each year, NMPF awards scholarships to outstanding graduate students (enrolled in Master’s or Ph.D. programs) who are actively pursuing dairy-related fields of research that are of immediate interest to NMPF member cooperatives and the US dairy industry at large.

Graduate students pursuing research of direct benefit to milk marketing cooperatives and dairy producers are encouraged to submit an application (applicants do not need to be members of NMPF to qualify). Scholarship recipients will be invited to present their research via webinar during the summer of 2023. Top applicants are eligible to be awarded the Hintz Memorial Scholarship, which was created in 2005 in honor of the late Cass-Clay Creamery Board Chairman Murray Hintz who was instrumental in establishing NMPF’s scholarship program.

Recommended fields of study include but are not limited to Agriculture Communications and Journalism, Animal Health, Animal and/or Human Nutrition, Bovine Genetics, Dairy Products Processing, Dairy Science, Economics, Environmental Science, Food Science, Food Safety, Herd Management, and Marketing and Price Analysis.

Applications must be received no later than Friday, April 14, 2023.  For an application or more information, please visit the NMPF website or email scholarship@nmpf.org.

The scholarship program is funded through the National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Fund. If you would like to support the scholarship fund, please consider a donation here.