Checkoff Leaders Discuss Collaboration with Mayo Clinic

Mar 01, 2022

The dairy checkoff has entered a five-year collaboration with Mayo Clinic to explore research and consumer outreach efforts to improve public health and advance dairy’s benefits.

The checkoff’s memorandum of understanding with Mayo entails Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), National Dairy Council (NDC) and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (IC).

“This is a milestone moment for dairy farmers who made this possible through their century-long commitment to research and dairy nutrition,” said DMI CEO Barbara O’Brien. “This doesn’t happen without the strong national reputation farmers have built through National Dairy Council.

“This is a powerful collaboration that shows how the dairy checkoff is expanding our scientific network to bring a modernized complement to our legacy and move us further into the future.”

The collaboration will be incorporated across Mayo Clinic’s campuses in Rochester, Minn., Scottsdale and Phoenix, Ariz., and Jacksonville, Fla.

Three focus areas
Teams comprised of NDC scientists and registered dietitians, Mayo Clinic physicians and health professionals as well as Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy experts will lead initiatives focused on three areas:

• Research to discover how dairy foods, particularly whole milk dairy, impacts cardiovascular health and metabolic conditions. Other potential research areas include dairy’s role on calm, sleep, digestive health and immunity.

• Communicating dairy’s strong body of evidence, new research and insights with the scientific community, health and wellness professionals and consumers.

• Exploring dairy’s role through digital platforms to propel people into a new way of precisely managing their wellness.

Click here to see more...

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.