The Top Three Entries Will Receive a Cash Prize
Dairy farmers are the original engineers, finding creative solutions to solving common and not-so-common problems on the farm. In the Center for Dairy Excellence’s new “Farmer-Made Ingenuity” Contest, dairy farmers are encouraged to submit inventive solutions that may be hiding in plain sight on many of our dairy farms for a chance to win a $1,000 cash prize. The contest will run from November 3 to December 12, 2025. Visit www.centerfordairyexcellence.org/farmer-made-contest to submit your entry.
“Whether it’s choosing the welder over an expensive repair bill or figuring out how to track data on your own to avoid another monthly subscription fee, farmers are constantly looking internally for homemade remedies to create cost-savings, improve their processes, and keep moving forward,” shared Jayne Sebright, Executive Director at the Center for Dairy Excellence. “This contest will showcase how inventive dairy farmers truly are and how much ingenuity they use in their day-to-day tasks. It also gives us a platform for exchanging these farmer-made ideas and creative solutions among our dairy community.”
Here are a few examples of creative, farmer-made solutions that would be eligible for the contest:
- Pill gun made out of two pieces of PVC pipe
- Excel spreadsheet that calculates Daily Dry Matter Intakes
- A homemade calf milk pasteurizer wagon with an electric kettle
- Feed pusher welded and molded out of an old tire scraper
- Farm-engineered methane digester
- Farmers are encouraged to get creative and think outside the box. Submit any homegrown ideas that have helped you move your farm forward.
To enter the contest, individuals must be a dairy producer or dairy farm employee; must be from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware or New Jersey; must be an original idea developed by the dairy producer and/or dairy employee; and must be an idea that solves a problem on the farm without risking worker safety. The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize, second place will receive $500, and third place will receive $250.
The winners will be selected in January 2026 through a digital voting system. All submitted entries may be featured on the Center for Dairy Excellence’s channels. The selected winners will be spotlighted online and at the PA Dairy Summit in February 2026.
Visit www.centerfordairyexcellence.org/farmer-made-contest to enter the contest online. The entry form is simple and asks you to share what you created, why you created it, and how it helped your farm. Contact Emily Barge at 717-788-0300 or via email at ebarge@centerfordairyexcellence.org with questions about the contest.