History of the IFCN

The establishment of a network like the IFCN is based on the contribution from a large number of people having a strong passion for dairy. Based on this there are many ways to tell the IFCN history. I (Torsten Hemme) will express my views on it.

Finding a driving question:  During my times as a student I liked to travel and also to work on dairy farms. Based on this I got experience on the various systems which exist and the challenge that it is not really easy to compare them.

The research challenge: In 1994 I got the opportunity to start my PhD research at the Federal FAL in Braunschweig in the field of dairy economics. The PhD research topic was developed by Folkhard Isermeyer Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL) and Ron Knutson/James Richardson (AFPC - Texas A&M University. The idea was to find a way which combines the approach of Folkhard in international farm comparisons with the concept of typical farms / FLIPSIM modelling used at Texas A&M University.

The IFCN concept: A key challenge was to develop a concept which is able to balance out the force gravity and the centrifugal forces. The gravity was needed to hold the network together while the centrifugal force was needed to generate growth and speed in the network. Moreover there was a need to generate the resources to coordinate the network activities. The IFCN concept was developed via a Private Public partnership between the FAL and the Management Company Global-Farm GbR.

The first IFCN dairy report: In the year 2000 the first IFCN Dairy Report was published and the first company partnership with DeLaval was signed. At that time researchers from 8 countries participated and 21 typical farms were analysed. Moreover the vision, research priorities and the values of the IFCN Dairy work and the sturucture of the dairy report had been defined.

Reformation of the  IFCN Dairy Research Center: Until 2005 IFCN was  affliated to  the FAL Braunschweig.  In the year 2005 the FAL Braunschweig had to withdraw the private public partnership based on the decisions from the Ministry of Agriculture.  As a consequence  a new set up of the IFCN Dairy Research Center needed to created which combine both the research work and the network activities. Moreover IFCN Support Association e.V. was created to support Master and PhD students willing  to cooperate with the IFCN.

The development since 2005: In this time frame the IFCN Dairy Research Center moved to Kiel and started the cooperation with the Faculty of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Within this period the IFCN Dairy Network has grown to over 80 countries, 60 dairy related companies and 5 dairy institutions participating .