Redox Bio-Nutrients based in Burley, Idaho, has donated $500,000 to the University of Idaho’s new Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, known as CAFE.

The company’s financial commitment is the latest support for the $45 million project, which, when completed, will be the nation’s largest research dairy and will have many other components to foster scientific research, agricultural sustainability and consumer education.

CAFE will address the impacts of dairies on water quality and efficiency, as well as nutrient management and soil health with interconnected research on animal agriculture and crop agriculture.

The research is aimed at agricultural viability and sustainability.

“We really are setting up a 30-year experiment on agricultural sustainability that includes not only the dairy but then agricultural production as well,” said Michael Parrella, dean of the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“Collectively, we can move mountains. From the Idaho Legislature to Redox and others in agriculture, it truly is a remarkable partnership that will pay widespread dividends,” he said.

Redox CEO Darin Moon said he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to contribute to the project that will move agriculture forward based on sound science and implementation of that science.

“Agriculture is at a transformative change right now. The environment is changing, the world is changing, so we have to support science that allows us to change,” he said.

The research dairy is a partnership between the university, Idaho Dairymen’s Association — which has led the effort for more than 15 years — and the state, with each contributing funding.

Other agriculture groups, processors and individuals have contributed or committed funding for the larger CAFE project, which includes an education and outreach center in Jerome and food science efforts in partnership with the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls.

The commercial-scale dairy is being built on a 640-acre demonstration farm near Rupert to conduct environmental research and will have a capacity of up to 2,000 cows.

The university plans to begin milking cows at the dairy toward the end of 2024, with the dairy fully operational from a research perspective by 2026.