HARRISBURG, Ark. — Increasing funding for land-grant work in Arkansas agriculture may take some persuasion, considering how few legislators have ties to agriculture or understand the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s impact in every Arkansas county.
State Sen. Ron Caldwell of Wynne, one of the speakers at the Aug. 30 grand opening of the Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center, said, “I think everyone’s surprised at how nice this facility really is. The real issue for us is to find out how much money it’s going to take to run this.”
State Sen. Ron Caldwell speaks during a joint meeting of the House and Senate ag committees on Aug. 30, 2024. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)
“We have 100 House members and 35 in the Senate, and only about 10 percent of the legislature has rice in their district,” he said of the Arkansas Legislature. “In fact, out of 135 members in the Legislature, we only have one rice farmer: Senator Blake Johnson from Corning.
“We are committed to outreach and education,” Caldwell said. “One of the first outreaches we need to make is our own legislative elected officials, because they need to understand how important rice is to the state and to the country.”
Arkansas is the nation’s top rice grower, producing nearly half of the crop.
“It's amazing the economic impact rice has,” he said. “We as a legislature are going to do our best to fund the Division of Agriculture and our extension service.”
Deacue Fields talks to the joint ag committee about the economic impact of ag in Arkansas. Taken Aug. 30. 2024, at the grand opening of the NE Rice Research and Extension Center at Harrisburg, Arkansas. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo by Mary Hightower)
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture is responsible for two of the three traditional land-grant missions: agricultural and food research through the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and outreach and knowledge transfer through the Cooperative Extension Service, which has offices in all 75 counties. The third mission, teaching, is conducted by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, which is part of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Before the grand opening ceremony, Deacue Fields, vice president-agriculture and head of the Division of Agriculture, gave a presentation about the division, its work, its funding and the return on investment to Arkansas’ economy.
Importance of ag research
Fields recalled that meeting while addressing the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees on Sept. 12.
“I was asked by someone at the meeting, ‘How does an institution — who has no tuition, who has no income stream, who can't be bonded — how do you build an 18-and-a-half million-dollar center?’
“It’s based on our relationships, our research reputation, and leveraging our resources, so our relationship with the state and our Rice Research and Promotion Board led to a $16 million investment in this center,” Fields said. “Our research reputation led to our industry partnering with us and adding additional funding for the building.”
Fields said the division also added $1 million to the project.
He underscored the importance of agriculture to the state’s economy and talked about the return on investment to the state. For example, ag contributes about $4,530/per capita to state’s economy.
“Farmers last year contributed $14 billion the state’s economy,” Fields said, noting that figure did not include the $450 million contributed by the forestry industry.
“From 2017 to 2022, Arkansas farm gate sales grew by $4.25 billion,” he said. “To put that in perspective, Louisiana's entire industry is $4.8 billion. So, our growth in five years almost totals Louisiana’s total industry.”
“We are able to document that the growth in the industry is highly correlated to the research and discoveries that have happened through the Division of Agriculture,” Fields said. “We did a benefit cost analysis strictly on rice. We estimate that $91 million annually going toward the economy from rice research. That’s a $28.5 to $1 benefit cost ratio.”
Caldwell urged his fellow lawmakers to pursue funding for the Division of Agriculture, noting the last recurring funds increase — $3 million annually — came in 2017.
“So, if we give them an increase, and maybe it will be [20] ’25 before they get this, it will be eight years since they had an increase,” Caldwell said. “Inflation is killing them. This is something we’re going to have to address. But the Legislature is going to have to take the ball and run with it.”
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.