Fields: Strengthening rural Arkansas is Division of Agriculture’s land-grant mission
“One of the things that that I've been working on is making sure that we address everything that is a part of our true land-grant mission,” Fields said
May 3, 2023
By Mary Hightower
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Fast facts:
- Fields, Malone: Collaboration is key
- Boozman, Small hear of rural infrastructure challenges
(919 words)
(Newsrooms: with images https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAzjgK)
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Improving conditions in rural Arkansas is the land-grant mission
work done every day by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
Deacue Fields, vice president-agriculture for the University of Arkansas System, heads the division, which is home to the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, which provide land-grant research and outreach in Arkansas. The land-grant system was introduced in the 19th century to bring needed education and technologies to the then-expanding United States.
“One of the things that that I've been working on is making sure that we address everything that is a part of our true land-grant mission,” Fields said at an April 10 roundtable assembled by Sen. John Boozman and Xochitl Torres Small, undersecretary for rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Boozman and Small hosted the hearing at the Division of Agriculture’s Milo J. Shult Research and Experiment Station near the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville campus. The trip to Fayetteville followed a visit to Wynne, Arkansas, which suffered heavy damage from a March 31 tornado.
“Arkansans have come together during this time of need and shown the nation the true character of rural America — when our neighbors are in need, we band together,” Boozman said. “This is what we should be seeking to preserve and allow to flourish.
“But for many of you, the time of need doesn't stop at disaster recovery. You see it every day. We know from the last Census that over half the counties across the state lost population,” Boozman said. “This exodus from rural Arkansas correlates with the loss of local businesses and other community infrastructure and facilities and once that is gone it's nearly impossible to bring it back.”
Rural issues
Boozman and Small heard from rural Arkansas invitees who discussed the infrastructure
challenges they face including lack of water systems, adequate housing and broadband.
Arkansas Agriculture Secretary Wes Ward said his department has “devoted $270 million for water and wastewater projects across the state, but that doesn’t get close to hitting that $5 to $6 billion worth of need that we know exists.”
Susan Wilson, mayor of nearby Mountainburg, described the decades of difficulties and frustration her town has endured in trying to get a water system, including filling out hundreds of pages of paperwork and watching costs for the project rise from $7.2 million to $13 million.
Wilson said the people of her city “have internet service through Arkansas Valley Electric but they don’t have water.”
Jill Floyd, Arkansas state director-rural development for USDA, said that broadband “is critical to our farmers, No. 1, because they can’t run their equipment anymore without having service. You know they’re having to use expensive cell phone service to do this; so, this is s barrier for our farmers. It’s a barrier for folks who want to move here. It’s a barrier for creating organic entrepreneurship.”
Boozman assured the group that “there’s going to be a lot of money in the pipeline” for rural broadband, adding that “we do need to make sure that everybody's taken care of and has done a very, very thoughtful way.”
USDA Rural Development has pledged $20 million to help improve the situation for rural Arkansas through the Water & Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program, Rural Decentralized Water Systems Grant Program, Community Facilities Guaranteed Loan Program, Community Facilities Emergency Rural Health Care, Business and Industry Loan Guarantees and Mutual Self-Help Housing and Technical Assistance Grants.
Equipped to help
Two of the panelists for the roundtable were part of the University of Arkansas System:
Fields as head of the Division of Agriculture and Mike Malone, vice chancellor for
economic development, at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
“When we think of our extension component, that’s where we see that we have the biggest impact,” Fields said. “We have someone in every county throughout the state, and so what happens in rural America, in the state of Arkansas, also impacts our extension employees.
“But they are also a part of the solutions that are happening throughout those rural communities as well,” he said. “We have a lot of programs going on at this point that are related to rural development.
“We have faculty, both research and extension faculty who work in the area of rural development,” he said.
Fields said collaboration is key to resolving issues facing rural Arkansas.
“One of the things we do to expand our resources would be to partner and collaborate and so we’ve been focusing on working with you; talking about ideas on how we can collaborate and extend what we do throughout rural communities,” he said.
Fields cited the Moving Communities Forward program in extension’s Community, Professional and Economic Development section, as an example of success.
“We'll expand that to more counties throughout the state but it’s just one of several things that we're doing trying to make sure that we're addressing what's happening in rural communities,” he said.
Malone agreed that collaboration was the means to tackle the large problems facing rural Arkansas.
“Collaborations, partnerships and bringing resources, and extending those resources around the state are critical,” Malone said. “On the university side the Division of Economic Development provides small business assistance. We train entrepreneurs all over the state.”
With its affiliated World Trade Center, “we provide import and export assistance all over the state and they work very closely with the agricultural community in that regard,” Malone said. “I’m excited about a lot of things and the momentum we have here.”
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.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen
agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption
of best practices. The Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work
within the nation’s historic land grant education system through the Agricultural
Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas
System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension
and Research programs to all eligible persons without regard to race, color, sex,
gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital
or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and
is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
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Media contact: Mary Hightower
mhightower@uada.edu