Parma facility to help farming families grow in changing ag climate

Plant an idea. Nurture it. Raise a few million in funds. Watch the seeds of innovation come to fruition.

It took five years and $12.1 million for the University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences to see the Idaho Center for Plant and Soil Health in Parma grown into a lab meant for research and to help farmers’ operations thrive.

Farmers grow 118 different crops in the Parma region.

“This facility is going to give farm families and farm companies all over the nation and particularly all over the state of Idaho the tools they need to be survivors and actually thrive in the face of changing challenges, whether they be climate challenges, whether they be consumer challenges or whether they be all of the challenges that we know exist every day,” said Gov. Brad Little during a ceremony to celebrate the completion of the lab.

Little himself graduated from University of Idaho with a degree in agribusiness in 1977.

The new lab, which spans some 9,600 square feet, was built to replace the U of I Parma Research Extension Center. According to a release, it includes lab space for research in nematology, pomology, plant pathology, microbiology and hops quality.

Of the $12.1 million it took to construct the facility, $3 million was derived from donations agricultural stakeholders.

Along with the CALS lab, the school is in the process of building the Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment in Rupert.

“This addition to our footprint is really a transformational addition when you add the work being done here now and into the future to what we can accomplish when the nation’s largest research dairy in the Magic Valley is finished,” said Chandra Zenner Ford, the center executive officer for U of I Boise and Southwestern Idaho. “University of Idaho is positioned to be a place to look for cutting-edge discoveries and innovation in agriculture that will have a global impact.”

Stakeholders in the Parma lab were determined to keep the facility operational. Among those are Jon and Margie Watson of J.C. Watson Packing Co., an onion packing, production and marketing company in Parma.

“This center has been the cornerstone of agriculture and research and education for a century,” said Margie Watson. “But like any living organism, growth depends on renewal. Let’s celebrate this renewal.”

To further the ongoing efforts of the lab, CALS has raise about 85% of the funding needed to create an endowed chair position in nematology, U of I stated.

“When I think about this facility and what we’ve accomplished, I view it as only being the beginning in the sense this should be a launching pad to even greater things moving forward,” said Michael P. Parrella, dean of CALS.