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Innovation

Essential to the culture of Dairy Farmers of America, innovation moves our Cooperative forward, brings us together and makes us stronger. While innovation often means targeting solutions to problems and looking at new ways of doing things, innovation at DFA is ultimately about finding opportunities — ones we might not even know exist yet — to position the Cooperative and our family farm-owners for future success. From researching and developing new products to take to market to implementing technology that creates efficiencies in our plants, we are committed to achieving innovation in all that we do.
Colab imageColab image

Innovation

Essential to the culture of Dairy Farmers of America, innovation moves our Cooperative forward, brings us together and makes us stronger. While innovation often means targeting solutions to problems and looking at new ways of doing things, innovation at DFA is ultimately about finding opportunities — ones we might not even know exist yet — to position the Cooperative and our family farm-owners for future success. From researching and developing new products to take to market to implementing technology that creates efficiencies in our plants, we are committed to achieving innovation in all that we do.

Colab: DFA's innovation program

As a community of family farm-owners and employees around the country — and the globe — we are always looking for ways to be more collaborative across the Cooperative. Our innovation program, called CoLAB, makes this possible. Initiatives in the CoLAB program include:

Colab: DFA's innovation program

As a community of family farm-owners and employees around the country — and the globe — we are always looking for ways to be more collaborative across the Cooperative. Our innovation program, called CoLAB, makes this possible. Initiatives in the CoLAB program include:
Our 90-day program to grow ag-tech and dairy food product startup businesses.
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An online idea submission forum that puts our family farm-owners’ and employees’ ideas into action.
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Brainstorming sessions to inspire creativity and collaboration among employees.
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Milk bar sessions

Connecting employees to innovation through interactive, informational events held virtually once a month on the latest news, trends and projects happening throughout the Cooperative.

Colab accelerator in action

Held once a year, DFA's CoLAB Accelerator is a 90-day program to grow up-and-coming ag-tech and dairy food startup companies in the dairy industry.

Through our experts, DFA provides mentorship and educational programming, which helps startups unlock more resources. In turn, the startups offer new opportunities, exciting technology and valuable resources to our family farm-owners, as well as nutritious dairy-based products to consumers or helpful insights to our business.

Watch the recording of our past Demo Days — the culmination of DFA’s CoLAB Accelerator program where participating startup companies give their pitches to an audience of potential customers, partners and investors.

DFA innovation spotlights

Applications are open for DFA's 2023 colab accelerator

Calling all ag-tech innovators — we are now accepting applications for the DFA’s 2023 CoLAB Accelerator. This year’s program will focus on agriculture technology startups and will help bring new technologies...
People talking about accelerator programPeople talking about accelerator program
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Cattle scan works to streamline on-farm cow care

Cattle Scan, one of the six exciting startup companies that participated in DFA’s 2022 CoLAB Accelerator program, a 90-day immersive program to grow ag-tech startups, helps dairy farmers track numerous health...
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Hago energetics revolutionizes green hydrogen production using cow manure

The team at a new ag-tech startup — Hago Energetics — has made it a goal to address the looming problem of global warming by offering farmers a way to convert their farm waste (mainly cow manure) into sellable products.  
Hago energetics revolutionizes green hydrogen production using cow manureHago energetics revolutionizes green hydrogen production using cow manure
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Cattleeye makes its mark in AG-Tech

Terry Canning and Andrew Askew founded CattleEye in 2019 to provide dairy farmers with livestock monitoring solutions that can help them become more efficient and improve the lives of their herds.
Man in front of cowsMan in front of cows
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