The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service will assist Southeast Missouri State University in placing the latest agricultural technology at the David M. Barton Ag Research Center. That’s according to a new agreement signed by Southeast and the NRCS on Tuesday.
Southeast’s Agriculture Department will manage the technology and present it to farmers from Missouri to Arkansas, according to Ag Department Chair Michael Aide.
“We think of it as a centralized place where we can bring farmers in and give them hands-on experience on these new technologies so that they can see if they want to apply them to their own farm,” Aide said.
Aide says some of the technologies include cover crops and ways to reduce nutrient runoff.
“There are many other new technologies that are coming in that will promote soil quality,” Aide said. “They will promote water quality and they will improve farm profitability.”
Aide says the long-range goal is to ensure Missouri farmers produce food and fiber for the public with zero environmental footprint.
NRCS will be able to use university facilities at the Barton Ag Research Center, the Charles Nemanick Alternative Agriculture Garden, the Biofuels/Biomass Research Center in Sikeston, and Southeast’s facilities at its regional campuses.