Supporting a dairy industry pipeline from youth to producers

Jackie Boerman’s path in the dairy industry began in western New York, where she grew up on her family’s dairy farm and was heavily involved in 4-H and FFA showing and judging cattle. Working closely with cows sparked an early interest in dairy nutrition, long before she realized it would become her career.

“Some of my early memories were at my grandparents’ dairy farm,” Boerman said. “We feed cows a lot of different ingredients, and they’re capable of converting that into milk—that’s really fascinating. But if we get the nutrients in those ingredients wrong, it can have negative effects on the cows."

After earning degrees from SUNY Cobleskill and Cornell University, Boerman spent a year milking cows in New Zealand and Australia before completing her master’s degree at the University of Illinois and her Ph.D. at Michigan State University. During her graduate studies, she also served as an adjunct professor at Purdue.

Following her Ph.D., Boerman worked for a nutrition company for two and a half years, expecting that industry work would be her long-term path.

“I thought I would stay in industry, but there's some appeal of being able to work with students, pursue the research that you're interested in and work with producers on problems that they feel the need to have answered,” Boerman said.

Encouraged by Purdue faculty to apply for her current role, Boerman is now an associate professor in the Department of Animal Sciences. Her work spans research, teaching and Extension.

Boerman’s Extension program aims at supporting youth, student and producer engagement, forming what she describes as a long-term pipeline. She works closely with Indiana 4-H and the Indiana State Fair, including coordinating the dairy skill-a-thon, where she has watched young participants grow into Purdue Dairy Club members and eventually into producers who now reach out to her for nutrition advice.

“I am able to see the dairy pipeline in Indiana,” Boerman said. “I work with them as 4-H’ers, then see them as students and Dairy Club members and stay in contact with them when they’re producers.”

Boerman also serves on the boards for Indiana Dairy Producers and the American Dairy Association of Indiana, connecting Purdue’s research with the needs of today’s dairy farms.

Each spring Boerman also helps organize the Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference, co-hosted with Ohio State and Michigan State, and she recently helped create a fall industry program focused on dairy automation.

Boerman also writes regularly for Indiana Dairy Producers newsletters, sharing Purdue research updates and insights from national meetings.

Boerman’s applied research program is closely tied to her Extension work.

“Applied research goes hand in hand with Extension,” Boerman said. “A lot of what we do comes directly from industry saying, ‘We really need this research to be done.’"

Boerman’s current projects reflect that connection. One industry-supported study evaluates the effects of feeding high-oleic soybeans with or without commercial fat supplements.

Another project applies video analytics on commercial dairy farms to evaluate total mixed ration uniformity and predict feed intake. That project is part of a multi-department grant titled “Stakeholder-Informed Integrated Video and Data Systems for Improved Dairy Efficiency,” involving faculty in agricultural and biological engineering, electrical and computer engineering and agricultural sciences education and communication.

Boerman was also recently awarded a USDA grant titled “Elucidating the Role of Nutrition and Genetics on Skeletal Muscle Dynamics in the Dairy Cow,” a collaborative project with animal sciences faculty Hinayah Rojas and Theresa Casey that will evaluate muscle mobilization during the dry period and early lactation through ultrasound measurements, genetic data and commercial farm records.

These research efforts model the philosophy she learned from her Ph.D. advisor, Adam Lock at Michigan State.

“His approach is: do applied research, and then, communicate those results to nutritionists because that touches the greatest number of cows,” Boerman said.

In addition to her research and Extension responsibilities, Boerman teaches ANSC 444: Dairy Management and ANSC 485: Dairy Farm Evaluation. She also advises the Purdue Dairy Club and coaches the Purdue Dairy Challenge Team, continuing the youth-to-student-to-producer pipeline she has built throughout her career.