Purdue lands $2M in USDA grants
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded two, $1 million grants to Purdue University. The university said Monday the funding will support separate five-year projects designed to enhance sustainable agricultural systems.
Both grants were awarded through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
The first project, being led by Michigan State University, seeks to develop more resilient food systems for coping with multiple disasters such as pandemics, tornadoes and flooding.
Maria Marshall, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue, who specializes in disaster recovery for small and family businesses and farms. She says disasters are not only occurring more frequently, but sometimes more than one will occur at the same time.
“You have climate change that is already affecting different parts of the supply chain,” Marshall said. “Now you add COVID on top of that. And then you add, for example, a train derailment. It’s one thing on top of another on top of another.”
Marshall’s team will develop and coordinate curriculum to help farmers deal with such disasters, which they plan to launch as a pilot program in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
Meanwhile, the Clemson project is focused on developing a controlled-environment platform to cultivate salt-tolerant food crops using saline irrigation water in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.
Rama Radhakrishna, head of the Department of Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication at Purdue, will head up the education program development and evaluation portions of the Clemson project.
“The concept here is how we can grow crops with reduced water intake,” said Radhakrishna.
In addition to developing curricula for high school and university students on the value and impact of using salt water for agriculture, Radhakrishna will conduct an analysis to identify any issues that could hinder the use of saline irrigation water in coastal areas.