The Tillamook County Creamery Association has pledged $1.5 million to help build a new dairy science center at Oregon State University.

The facility is part of a planned food and beverage center that will include wine and beer making and other food made through fermentation. The dairy section will include an automated, small-scale manufacturing plant to produce cheese, ice cream, cultured products and powders. Oregon State’s small dairy herd, housed a quarter-mile away, will provide milk for the facility.

OSU already has a “beautiful little pilot plant” to make artisan cheese but the new facility will expand the opportunities for students, said Lisbeth Goddik, dairy processing Extension specialist and a food science professor.

“This is taking the training to a new level,” Goddik said.

She said the dairy industry, particularly on the West Coast, is doing well. Exports to Mexico, China, Japan and elsewhere have fueled the industry’s rise, she said.

The industry’s strong position has paid off in jobs for program graduates. Goddik said national dairy companies now send recruiters to OSU.

“The industry realizes we have some pretty good students come out of here,” she said.

The dairy part of the food building will cost about $6 million, of which $3 million is projected to come from donations such as the one from Tillamook. The rest is proposed to come from state bonds, pending legislative approval this year.

Patrick Criteser, president of the Tillamook Creamery group, said in a prepared statement that the donation demonstrates the co-op’s confidence in OSU to train the next generation of dairy scientists. The group is a farmer-owned cooperative that produces the familiar Tillamook brand cheese and other products.

“I can tell you, it’s pretty fabulous for Tillamook Creamery to be making this investment,” said Goddik, of OSU. “It’s real money, obviously money the dairy farmers could use themselves.”