Multiple farm groups provide financial support for Parma upgrade

By Sean Ellis

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation

PARMA – A growing number of farm groups have pledged financial support toward a proposed $7 million upgrade of University of Idaho’s Parma agricultural research station.

U of I’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences plans a $7 million renovation of the Parma station, which conducts research on multiple crops, including beans, potatoes, onions, hops, mint, tree fruit, wine and table grapes, cereals and seed crops.

The plan includes raising $3 million from the state’s agriculture industry over five years, as well as $3 million from the Idaho Legislature. The university, which already invests $1.5 million each year in the center, plans to provide an additional $1 million toward the renovation project.

CALS Dean Michael Parrella is making the rounds of different farm commissions and organizations in Idaho and asking for their support toward the project. He told members of the Idaho Barley Commission June 20 that raising that much money is a heavy lift but it’s an achievable goal if everyone helps out.

“The commissions can’t do it by themselves, the university can’t do it by itself and the legislature can’t do it by itself,” he said. “But collectively, we can.”

“This will really be a beautiful facility, something that everybody can be proud of,” he said during the Idaho Bean Commission’s June 19 meeting. “We’re looking at a consortium of … stakeholders in the ag industry that contribute to the greater good.”

The Idaho Hop Commission has agreed to contribute $525,000 over five years toward the project and the Idaho Bean Commission and Idaho Barley Commission each have agreed to pitch in $25,000 over five years.

The Idaho Onion Growers Association has verbally committed to provide $100,000 and the Idaho Alfalfa and Clover Seed Commission is chipping in $25,000.

Crookham Seed Co. and Story Family Farms are also helping financially.

Parella said the college “is well on our way to formulating a plan to accomplish this goal” and the hope is to break ground on the new facility in 2021.

Part of the project includes adding four new positions at Parma: an extension fruit and viticulture specialist, a weed scientist, an irrigation and soil scientist and a pollination scientist.

That would bring the total number of research faculty at the Parma station to 10 and they would study everything from bugs to weeds, water and soil, things every Idaho farmer deals with, Parrella said.

“We’re hoping that no commission is on the sidelines on this because every commission will benefit from it,” he said.

The modernized facility would include new graduate student housing, updated labs and equipment and new greenhouses.

Many of the facilities at the Parma station and Idaho’s eight other ag research and extension centers are more than 50 years old and all of the centers are in need of modernized infrastructure and equipment, Parrella said.

He said the goal is to start with the Parma center but CALS plans to refurbish all of its ag research stations.

“We are committed to investing in all our research and extension centers,” he said. “We need to update them all. We start with Parma and then move on to the other R & E centers in the state.”

The 200-acre Parma center was slated for closure in 2009 during the last recession but a coalition of ag groups formed to help save it.

One of those groups, the Treasure Valley Ag Coalition, recently changed its name to the Idaho Agriculture Research and Extension Coalition to reflect that the research done in Parma will benefic all sectors of the state’s farming community.

“The research done there is clearly going to benefit more than just growers around Parma,” Parrella said. “It will serve all of Idaho.”