New Mexico State University’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences will usher in a new era of education and outreach next month when leaders and officials unveil two new additions to NMSU’s growing agricultural district.
The College of ACES will celebrate the completion of the Food Science, Security and Safety Center and the Animal Nutrition and Feed Manufacturing Facility during a public ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, Nov. 3. Several dignitaries, elected officials and NMSU representatives will join the event to commemorate the buildings’ anticipated impact to New Mexico’s agricultural industry.
The event begins at 10:30 a.m. It will include various speakers, a tour of the new buildings, located off Stewart Street, near the Knox Street intersection, a classroom-naming dedication and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Community members are welcome to attend.
Construction on the buildings began in 2021 as part of a project funded by general obligation bonds approved by New Mexico voters in 2018 and 2020. Another facility, a biomedical research building, remains under construction.
“These facilities will be a game changer for ACES, NMSU and New Mexico,” College of ACES Dean Rolando A. Flores Galarza said. “They will benefit student education, support food and value-added research of agricultural products, and facilitate labor training for the meat and food industry — thus, directly impacting the food safety of our agricultural products and the economic impact of the College of ACES in New Mexico.”
Flores Galarza added: “We sincerely appreciate the substantial monetary contributions of the New Mexico Beef Council, Caviness Beef Packers and other significant donors. Without their contributions, this project would have not been able to complete.”
The Food Science, Security and Safety Center will serve as an international hub for food safety and security along the United States-Mexico border. It houses six state-of-the-art laboratories that will support research in functional foods, nutraceuticals, food processing, dairy science, fermentation, minimizing water usage in food production and other areas.
One of the classrooms in the facility will be named after the late Neil Burcham, who taught in the College of ACES for nearly half a century. Burcham, who died in December 2022 at age 81, was an associate professor in the Department of Animal and Range Sciences for 48 years before retiring in 2017. A formal naming dedication will take place during the Nov. 3 event.
Efren Delgado, head of the Family and Consumer Sciences and Extension Family and Consumer Sciences departments and co-director of the Center of Excellence in Sustainable Food and Agricultural Systems, said the new facility will support value-added agriculture, one of New Mexico’s nine targeted industries.
“The new facility will allow the College of ACES and NMSU to become a regional provider of high-quality teaching, research and outreach in value-added agriculture and a hub for local, regional and international training in food science and bioprocessing,” Delgado said.
The new facility will also support a newly proposed Ph.D. program in food science, he added.
“The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences is uniquely located to address borderland food security issues and attract students from underrepresented minorities,” he continued. “The facility’s state-of-the-art laboratories will support emerging research areas critical to New Mexico’s economic development, such as functional foods, nutraceuticals, minimization of water usage in food production and dairy technology.”
The Animal Nutrition and Feed Manufacturing Facility will consolidate NMSU’s livestock education and research enterprise into a single feed mill, giving students, researchers and stakeholders ample space to investigate novel feedstuffs and processing methods to improve livestock health and productivity.
More than 80% of the courses offered in the Department of Animal and Range Sciences will use the new feed mill. Students will receive opportunities to work in the facility and obtain hands-on experience in feed milling, preparing them for careers in the feedlot and feed manufacturing industries. Researchers, meanwhile, will use the space to formulate supplements and rations for livestock experiments to improve health, reproduction and meat quality.
“These buildings are the biggest thing to happen in the College of ACES in years,” said Shanna Ivey, head of NMSU’s Animal and Range Sciences and Extension Animal Sciences and Natural Resources departments. “Our students deserve these new buildings, and we are so excited to start using these resources. They will not only benefit our students but also our youth- and adult-learning programs.”
Donald Conner, associate dean and director of academic programs in the College of ACES, said the new facilities will enhance the college’s efforts to meet NMSU’s land-grant mission of teaching, research and extension.
“The design of each of these buildings is very intentional to facilitate student learning, practical and basic research, and training of industry personnel,” Conner said. “I believe our undergraduate and graduate students, as well as our ACES stakeholders, will benefit greatly from these new facilities for years to come.”
For more information about the ribbon-cutting ceremony, call 575-646-3748.
The full article can be seen at https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-to-unveil-new-agricultural-buildings-nov.-3-at-ribbon-cutting-ceremony/s/7d1cb2c3-9cb8-4f29-9072-ba38ce9b0293