The Kansas Department of Agriculture and Kansas State University broke ground on a new facility Friday afternoon at Research Park.
The K-State Foundation is constructing a three-story, 50,000-square-foot facility and leasing it to the Kansas Department of Agriculture for a 20-year period. The new facility will be next to the K-State Institute of Commercialization and the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. The College of Agriculture, Kansas State Research and Extension, College of Veterinary Medicine, K-State international grain science complex, and U.S. Department of Agriculture facilities are also nearby.
“If you look at the industry across the state and in with what’s happening at K-State with the growth in the College AG and growth in the College of Veterinary Medicine, the new home for NBAF and all of the other AG and Bio Science entities that are coming to K-State, you can’t help but think that this truly is the value added center for agriculture in the state of Kansas; and what better place to put your Department of AG than adjacent to the land grant university,” said Mary Geiger, communications director for the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
Several Officials attended the ceremony including; Kirk Schulz, university president; Dale Rodman, state secretary of agriculture; Jerry McReynolds, Kansas State Board of Agriculture chair; and Fred Cholick, president and CEO of the Kansas State University Foundation.