Progress 04/01/24 to 03/31/25

Outputs
Target Audience:Dairy goat producers, veterinarians, college students (undergraduate and graduate) and their communities including prospective dairy goat producers were directly engaged in our programming and research during Year 1 of this project. These groups were targeted for several reasons, including: 1) to provide knowledge to producers and veterinarians to improve current on-farm practices and 2) to engage in workforce development for future dairy goat producers. Changes/Problems:Shortly after this award was received the original Principal Investigator (PI), Paul Plummer, accepted a new role as Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. A new PI, Amanda Kreuder, was identified at Iowa State University to lead the project, and the appropriate paperwork was filed shortly after Dr. Plummer's departure; however, there was a long delay in processing the paperwork at USDA and, as such, work on the project at the home institution, Iowa State University, was delayed until the process had been completed inDecember 2024. Following approval of the PI transfer, positions were posted for a project manager and learning development specialist, however, due to uncertainty related to the impact of new Executive Orders, hiring was delayed at the request of the university and staff did not begin their roles until Year 2 of the project, further delaying the launch of several aspects of this project. Launch of the animal health research components was also delayed due to this uncertainty. Due to staffing challenges that arose after submission of the grant, the original subaward planned for Kansas State University to complete Objective 3 was declined. A new co-PI, Maria Wurzinger (Iowa State University), was added to the project to assist co-PI Cornelia Flora with the Community Capitals Inventory (objective 3) and to supervise the Community Capitals Research Scientist. Co-PI Cornelia Flora passed away on April 30, 2025. The Community Capitals Research Scientist and co-PI Maria Wurzinger will carry on the work for objective 3. Dr. Flora was not receiving any compensation so there is no financial impact to this project. Finally, with the transition of Paul Plummer to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a new co-PI, Liz Eckelkamp, was also added to the project to assist with recruiting dairy goat producers in the Southeast states to participate in the project. The subaward that was originally proposed for Kansas State University (to co-PI Flora) was reassigned to University of Tennessee, Knoxville but was not able to be finalized until the beginning of Year 2 of the award. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two graduate students were hired during Year 1 and are currently working on aspects of this project under mentorship of co-PIs with at least two more students set to begin work in Year 2. A veterinary student was involved in the ISU CVM Summer Scholars program during Year 1 and introduced to research related dairy goat health under mentorship of two co-PIs; two more students are planned for Year 2. Veterinary continuing education was provided related to respiratory disease at two separate educational events during Year 1, and multiple veterinary CE events are planned for Year 2. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In 2024, a Dairy Goat Webinar Series was created to share information with current or prospective dairy goat producers, industry representatives, nutritionists, veterinarians, educators, and students interested in dairy goats. The program was evaluated with a pre-post retrospective tool at the conclusion of each webinar. Total webinar registrations were approximately 257, with a total of 248 attending the live webinars. These webinars not only reach Iowa participants, but also 38 other states, and internationally with 25 different countries. Those that responded saying they were educators, veterinarians, nutritionists, industry representatives in total manage or consult with over 182,000 goats in their work (2023 = 114,000). Depending on the topic being presented, most participants were dairy goat producers (33-71%), veterinarians (29-50%), or hobbyists (14-45%), with the remaining a mix of educators, students, industry, or just interested in learning more about goats. Inquiries via email/phone/farm visits related to Dairy Goat Production to Iowa State Extension co-PIs have been answered in 2024 (n=3) and early 2025 (n=6). A website has been developed for this project (launching during Year 2) that also includes information for a previously funded USDA NIFA project supporting dairy goat production. The reason we incorporated materials from the previous website are twofold: 1) to keep as much dairy goat production resources in one place as possible for ease of discovery and 2) three of the co-PIs were also part of the previous project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For the Life Cycle Inventory (Objective 1), the team will continue to refine the questionnaire and will begin data collection from producers. The team is working towards completing and finalizing the LCI questionnaire so that it effectively captures key important environmental factors and socio-economic aspects of dairy goat production. To support robust data collection, we also intend to create a respondent manual that will explain important concepts and provide directions for completing the survey by guiding them step-by-step for each section. Additionally, efforts are underway to improve the readability and usability of the questionnaire such as simplifying language, adding notes and hints, refining question flow, and pre-testing the tool in order to enhance respondent understanding and data quality. Farm visits to collect and analyze financial information which will be integrated into the LCI will begin early in Year 2 for three regions: California, Iowa/Midwest states, Southeast states (mostly North Carolina and Tennessee). This information will feed into efforts detailed in objective 5 to disseminate findings to the public via our website and direct feedback to dairy goat producers. For the animal health (Objective 2) arm of this project, work will begin to collect diagnostic samples from dairy goats to begin to document the etiologic agents responsible for respiratory disease in the US dairy goat industry (Obj 2.1) and evaluate the impact of antimicrobial resistance in this agricultural sector. Viral and bacterial isolates collected during this first phase of the research are a critical component for initiation of experiments to identify efficacious antibiotic and non-antibiotic intervention strategies for preventing and treated respiratory disease in dairy goats (Obj 2.3). Planning will be initiated for the remaining sub-objectives including failure of passive transfer (Obj 2.2) and mastitis (Obj 2.4 and 2.5) during Year 2 as well. This information will feed into efforts detailed in objective 5 to disseminate findings to the public via our website and direct feedback to dairy goat producers. For community capitals work (Objective 3) in Year 2, we will finalize the hire of a research scientist to begin formative social science research focused on potential or actual producers to determine how they can conceptualize goats as part of their entrepreneurial efforts. This information will be integrated with the economic modeling developed in Objectives 1 and 5 to support our long-term goal of providing education and extension efforts that assist these producers with business planning and implementation. This information will feed into efforts detailed in objective 5 to disseminate findings to the public via our website and direct feedback to dairy goat producers. For the educational component (Objective 4) of this project, we expect to have the new undergraduate course in dairy goat production approved for rollout in spring 2026. We will complete our first youth workshop at the American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA) National Show in summer 2025 and present educational seminars to producers and veterinarians at the ADGA National Convention in fall 2025. Two veterinary students will be involved in the ISU CVM Summer Scholars program and introduced to research related dairy goat health under mentorship of co-PIs. For our Extension and Outreach (Objective 5), farm visits to collect and analyze financial information which will be used to create a financial benchmarking tool for dairy goat operations as well as be integrated into the LCI will begin early in Year 2 for three regions: California, Iowa/Midwest states, Southeast states (mostly North Carolina and Tennessee). During Year 2, we will also initiate the development of online educational modules for producers focused on sustainability and community responsibility which will assist producers in incorporating best practices into their operations. Following farm visits to dairy goat producers, we will also begin collecting and recording producer stories about their experiences in the industry and marketplace. Additional Year 2 outcomes for Extension programming include a quarterly newsletter, website launch and regular updates, webinars, and producer educational meetings.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The results of our research, education, and extension efforts will improve and assure the sustainability of dairy goat production in the US as farms originate or scale to be more environmentally sustainable while assuring continued access to value-added markets (e.g. on farm cheese, soap or lotion processing and marketing). We will accomplish this through five major objectives, including evaluating environmental stewardship (obj 1), advancing animal health (obj 2) in terms of mastitis and respiratory disease treatments, promoting antibiotic stewardship (obj 2 & 4), proving guidance in the improvement of economics of production (obj 1 & 3), and, finally, in educating producers and veterinarians on each of the aforementioned topics as well as creating new tools for training (obj 5). Objective 1: During Year 1, we initiated development of a dynamic farm system computational simulation model linked with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), similar to those used for beef and dairy, that will consider the entire system including crop and pasture production, harvested feeds, feed storage, grazing, nutrient management, and animal production. This model will predict long-term performance, carbon footprint, and economics of production systems. Once created, this tool can improve sustainability by providing strategies to increase productivity, profitability, and climate adaptability, as well as decrease environmental impact of production systems. As the sector moves toward improved practices, balancing environmental goals with economic viability remains critical. Integrating LCA with complementary tools--such as route optimization or financial modeling--can provide more actionable insights for designing sustainable and resilient goat production systems. Building a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) questionnaire for dairy goat production required developing a comprehensive and detailed farm-data capturing mechanism which tracks the management practices, inputs, and outputs at each level of the production system. The questionnaire included comprehensive details on various aspects of dairy goat production such as procuring and producing feed, energy and water consumption on the farm, manure management, animal health and productivity, and processing milk and meat. To develop the LCI questionnaire for dairy goat production, we drew insights from sources such as official survey instruments, extension service reports, and livestock survey guides. These included USDA's National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) goat survey, the 2025 Sheep and Goat Report survey form by USDA/NASS, and the World Bank and FAO's LSMS Guidebook for designing household livestock survey modules. Additionally, we reviewed livestock data collection frameworks outlined in the Sourcebook on Livestock Data in Africa and incorporated findings from recent life cycle assessment research on goat farming typologies. These provided valuable guidance on structuring questions related to herd demographics, feeding practices, manure management, production outputs, and environmental indicators--critical components of a robust LCI tool. Importantly, in order fulfill Objective 3, we also integrated socio-economic indicators such as labor allocation, demographic information, livelihood indicators and costs and revenues of operations. This integrated approach allows for a more holistic assessment of sustainability in dairy goat systems. Currently the LCI questionnaire includes the following broad categories: Metadata - Farm and Farmer level details Energy and Water use Machinery and Infrastructure Breeding, Kidding and Rearing processes Processing Data Waste and Emissions Milk and Meat Production Operations and Overhead Objective 2: Based on stakeholder input we have identified management of mastitis and respiratory disease as key issues to dairy goat sustainability, especially in light of rising antimicrobial resistance. To address these issues, we plan to conduct critically needed research on these topics with a focus on identifying approaches that improve antimicrobial stewardship. In year 1, we initiated outreach to veterinarians and producers through the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association Annual meeting and American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners meeting at the American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA) Annual Convention to promote planned research on respiratory disease (Obj 2.1). We engaged potential internal (Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory) and external (Medgene) collaborator to assist us in sample recruitment and assembling respiratory test kits for deployment to veterinarians across the country. We also initiated a proposal for coordinating with ADGA to access a wider sample of dairy goats for respiratory disease monitoring as goats depart a high contact event - the ADGA national youth show in summer 2025. Objective 3: We are working to support rural community development and broaden the farm workforce by evaluating the ability of dairy goat production's relatively low land requirement, low capital investment, and high potential for local value-added sales to promote new farm development. To accomplish this work, an additional co-principal investigator, Dr. Maria Wurzinger, was recruited to join the project. We also initiated a search to hire a Community Capitals Research Scientist to help build an inventory of questions and to deploy into the field to interview producers and their communities. Interviews for this position are planned to begin in Year 2, along with development of a research plan. Objective 4: To accomplish educational objectives for this project, we initiated a search and hired a Learning Development Specialist (LDS) to assist in development of educational materials and assessments. Subobjectives for this part of the project include creating a new undergraduate course at Iowa State University on the dairy goat industry, a first of its kind offering at the university; plans for offering this course in the curricula were initiated during Year 1 with the Animal Science department at ISU (Obj 4.4). Significant planning including meetings with ADGA and project team members was also performed during Year 1 for organizing a workshop at the ADGA National Show which teach 40 youth (who just finished 9th grade until 21 years old) about dairy goat husbandry (Obj 4.1). The first workshop is scheduled early in Year 2 at the ADGA National Show in July 2025. A veterinary summer scholar was also engaged in research related to dairy goat health during the reporting period (Obj 4.2). Objective 5: For this objective, we have begun to build on current extension efforts to effectively disseminate the outcomes of the above research, encourage the use of economics and the dynamic farm system model (Obj. 1) to make better decisions, train producers of dairy goats in sustainable practices and antimicrobial stewardship (Obj. 2 and 4), and train producers in business continuity programs (Obj. 4). Significant planning was performed to complete farm visits to gather data for economic and financial benchmarking which are scheduled for early in Year 2 in Iowa, California, Tennessee and North Carolina during May/June 2025. Webinars and producer meetings were held through ISU Extension programming related to the dairy goat industry (see products) which promoted the work that will be done on this project (Obj 5.2). Planning for additional outreach in the form of website development, quarterly newsletters, and social media was also initiated during Year 1 and will be implemented during Year 2 that will help position this project for a larger audience once outcomes are ready for dissemination. Planning and communication with ADGA has also been initiated for producer-focused entrepreneurial training to be held at ADGA National Convention in October 2025 during Year 2 (Obj 5.3).

Publications