Innovative ag programs, leadership will grow through UMO Student Farm’s new building

Fields at the University of Mount Olive’s George R. Kornegay, Jr. Student Farm that once produced crops will now help grow the state’s next generation of farmers and agricultural leaders thanks to a new building that will house innovative agriculture programs.

Wednesday, March 22, the university’s Department of Agriculture and Biological Sciences held a ribbon cutting for the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission Agricultural Commodity Building, the newest addition to the farm.

The building, the first-of-its-kind facility in a private college agriculture program setting in the state, will serve as a commodity handling facility, food hub and training and demonstration site for students and local farmers.

The George R. Kornegay Jr. family donated the farm, located at 408 Garner Chapel Road in Duplin County about five miles southeast of Mount Olive, in 2014.

Kornegay’s daughter, Stephanie, and widow, Barbara, attended the ceremony.

“I am excited about this facility,” said Dr. Sandy Maddox, dean of the UMO School of Agriculture and Biological Sciences.

Maddox thanked the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission for its support.

“It is with honor that we dedicate this building today to that group,” she said. “We appreciate their support, not only in this effort, but the many other efforts that we do in our outreach education to farmers. I also would like to thank the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund.

“I think the thing that stands out to me the most is that this is such a unique partnership. We have private donors who have made a tremendous impact on this farm and even on this building. And to have a unique partnership of public and private, I think it says a lot about what those people feel about the job that our faculty are doing here and the leaders that our students and our graduates are becoming in the ag industry.”

The building was built so that it can be Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certified, Maddox added.

As such it is equipped with cooler storage capacity, cleaning, grading, and sorting capacity and limited freezer capacity.

GAP is a voluntary certification program which verifies through an audit that sound food safety practices are being used. This helps reduce the risk of microbial contamination in fruits, vegetables and nuts and aims to ensure these foods are safe to eat.

Food safety is a “big issue” and that will be taught through the facility, she added.

The certification also opens marketing options, Maddox said.

“We are going to teach them how to get GAP certification and what that means,” she noted. “We are going to develop what we hope to be a regional food hub through this building. We are reaching out to our partners in the agricultural industry right now and asking them to participate with us.”

The goal is to come together with a critical mass of produce and product that can go through the building to support markets, whether they are farmers’ markets, grocery stores or Community Supported Agriculture markets, she explained.

Community Supported Agriculture, a type of direct marketing, consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production.

“Those are the types of market options that we hope to just explode for our small farmers in this region,” Maddox explained. “This is what this facility is meant to do, and while doing it, our students are going to be working hand-in-hand with those growers and learning really what it is to farm and what it is to make sure that you are profitable in farming, too.

“Sounds lofty, but that is what the intention is for this facility. We are looking forward to utilizing it. We are going to be working with others throughout the county and throughout the region to hopefully get this up and running as quickly as we can so we can meet those market needs and also increase profitability for our farmers here in eastern North Carolina.”

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Construction on the 5,000-square-foot facility began in November 2021 and was completed in February 2023. The total cost, including equipment, was $380,900.

The project was funded by multiple partners including the Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, that assisted with equipment purchases, and the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, the lead donor for building construction.

Multiple private donors contributed to the project as well.

It will handle, store and process commodities grown at the student farm and consolidate commodities from local growers to distribute to various market channels including Community Supported Agriculture and mobile farmers markets.

The building will create a hands-on educational environment for students and farmers to observe operational and production practices that could be implemented on the family farm.

It will also provide a platform to demonstrate traditional and organic agronomic/horticultural crop production diversification principles, strategies, and market development options with business models for new and existing farmers, resulting in risk reduction through demonstration and education.

The university plans to expand the facility to include commodity processing, which will add value to and increase profitability.

Students and farmers will be trained to understand and implement food safety handling principles, organic production, handling and marketing opportunities, value-added diversification strategies for production and marketing to allow for operational diversification and increased profitability potential.

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Evan Davis, director of the Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, congratulated Maddox, who has announced her retirement, on her career. He added that her leadership and vision have made a difference in the lives of farmers and future farmers in the state.

Davis spoke on what he called the unique challenges facing agriculture in eastern North Carolina.

“Last summer the American Farmland Trust released the most comprehensive study on farmland loss in the United States to date,” he said. “They determined that by the year 2040 North Carolina will lose the second most number of acres of farmland in the whole United States. Based on current development trends they projected that North Carolina will lose 1.1 million acres of farmland by the year 2040.”

A more distressing model the agency put out in which the amount of suburban and rural sprawl is increased could mean a loss of 1.6 million acres by 2040, he added. To put that in perspective, the entire land mass of the state of Delaware is 1.5 million acres, he said.

“Those are the stakes, and that is why initiatives like this are so very important,” Davis said. “The primary program inside the Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund mission is that we provide grants to counties and organizations like the University of Mount Olive.

“Since its inception in 2005, the Trust Fund has provided nearly $50 million in grants funds and leveraged over $90 million in matching funds.”

Because of it innovative leadership, the university has been a leader in the state when it comes to agriculture projects like the new building, he added.

Another of the agency’s missions is to foster the growth, development and sustainability of family farms, he said.

The university has taken that mission to heart, Davis said.

“And today here at the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission Agricultural Commodity Building, we see how these great partners and visionary leaders can come together to build a strong agricultural future,” he added.

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“Our challenge always is to find projects that promise to make a unique impact on the lives of farmers and the citizens of North Carolina,” said Bill Teague, chairman of the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission. “We are happy that UMO has been a partner of ours for many years.

“This project is just one of the latest examples of how the Tobacco Trust Fund Commission is partnering with UMO. UMO has consistently been making impressive impacts.”

Projects like the new building are an investment in the future of agriculture, Davis added.

As a former ag teacher, Davis said he knows that hands-on teaching is the best kind.

“We are excited about the unlimited opportunities this facility brings,” he said. “We look forward to many, many more years of great things happening here at Mount Olive.”

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Donnie Lassiter, UMO board of trustees member, thanked Davis and Teague and their organizations on behalf of the board.

Lassiter told the two that he knows that they have a lot of hands asking for money all of the time and that they have a lot of choices.

“I hope you being here today … that you see that this money is spent very, very wisely here,” he said. “I can assure you of that. Sandy has done such an outstanding job.

“I am glad that both organizations and everyone that has contributed to this building and this agricultural campus realize how important it is to eastern North Carolina to have an institution like this.”

It is important because there are boys and girls who live here and who want to stay in eastern North Carolina, Lassiter said.

UMO is giving those students a chance to get an education, stay in agriculture and remain in the eastern part of the state while providing for a good career for them and their families, he said.

For more information, visit www.umo.edu.