With a $175,000 gift from Northwest Farm Credit Services, the University of Idaho Parma Research & Extension Center is a step closer to funding its much-needed upgrade.
Michael Parrella, dean of the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who celebrated five years at the university this month, said with the Northwest Farm Credit Services donation and the donations of other agriculture stakeholders, he is optimistic that the Idaho Legislature will fund the rest of the project.
Parrella proposed the upgrade in 2019. The proposal includes a new facility, called the Parma Center for Plant and Soil Heath, with upgraded laboratories. The labs are currently based in two double-wide trailers.
With infrastructure and hiring plans, the upgrade is expected to cost $7 million.
The university has reached its goal to raise $3 million from the agricultural industry. Next, it will ask the state to contribute $3 million, and the college will contribute the final $1 million.
The $3 million for the Parma project is included in the Permanent Building Fund budget, which includes construction and maintenance costs for state buildings, including those at the colleges, universities and community colleges. The budget next needs to be approved by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee in order for the funds to be distributed for the Parma project.
Parrella said he believes it is helpful that the project received donations from a diverse group of agriculture stakeholders, including Amalgamated Sugar, the Idaho Hops Commission and the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation, because it shows legislators that the project is important to the industry as a whole.
“The donations reaffirm what we are trying to do,” Parrella said. “We are not trying to expand for the university, but for research, outreach and education for the agricultural industry as a whole in Idaho.”
If the legislature approves the $3 million by July, the Parma upgrades are planned to be completed by 2023.
The donation from the Northwest Farm Credit Services also included $925,000 to support the planned Agri Beef Meat Science and Innovation Center on the University of Idaho’s Moscow campus, student scholarships and a chapter of the national student organization Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences. Donations also went toward the Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment and the Wayne Thiessen Potato Research Professorship Endowment.