Dayton Daily: Central State Increases Sustainable Agriculture Research Funding
From Dayton Daily News …
Central State University has received an increase in federal U.S. Department of Agriculture funding as it ramps up key research that could shape the agriculture industry in Ohio for years to come and prepares its students, mostly young people of color, for work in the agriculture and science industries.
The historically Black university in Greene County is a host for a multitude of agriculture research, including studies on honeybee genetics that would help beekeepers and farmers keep healthy bee colonies and continue to get crops pollinated, and on hemp as a potential crop to rotate into the usual mix of corn, soybeans and wheat that farmers across Ohio typically grow.
The university received $634,695 in competitive sustainable farming grant dollars from the USDA in 2020, and more than $9 million from the USDA in total. By 2022, the competitive sustainable farming grant dollars had increased to more than $12 million, and the university had received nearly $26 million in total from the USDA in 2022, which includes one grant that totaled about $10 million.
So far in 2023, the university has gotten about $1.7 million in competitive USDA sustainability grants and about $17 million total from the USDA.