University of Idaho requests viticulture specialist at Parma and maintenance funds for research dairy

Michael Perella, dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Idaho, told the Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee that the college is asking the Legislature to fund a viticulture and small-fruits research and extension specialist based in Parma and to provide building maintenance funding for the Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment, a large research dairy in Rupert.

Perella said the college’s work flows from its land-grant mission. “When the Morrill Act was signed, we became a state. Automatically, we, the state received federal land that went into an endowment,” he told the committee, outlining the Morrill Act, the Hatch Act and the Smith-Lever Act as the statutes that created the experiment station and cooperative extension system that underpin the college’s statewide research and outreach network.

The college operates 10 research and extension centers across Idaho, Perella said, and supports major breeding programs for potatoes, wheat and other crops. He told senators that new facilities and hires during his tenure have strengthened the college’s capacity: “We’ve hired 75 new faculty. That’s almost a third of the faculty in the college,” Perella said.

Perella described the specific funding requests before the committee: a viticulture and small-fruits specialist at the Parma Research and Extension Center to serve Idaho’s wine-grape growers and to do site-specific applied research, and maintenance and operating funding for the Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment in Rupert, where Perella said the rotary milking parlor is built and the college hopes to have cows in production “in a little less than a year.” He noted the state has multiple recognized American Viticultural Areas and six distinct wine-growing regions; the specialist would be intended as a practical resource for prospective and current growers.

Senators thanked Perella and asked questions about the dairy facility’s progress and where agricultural expansions might occur in the state. Perella said viticulture and rotational crops present expansion opportunities and observed that development of new cultivars is often a long process, sometimes taking a decade to reach commercial acceptance.

Perella introduced the institutional history that informs the college’s statewide work and thanked the committee and governor for support during his tenure; he said he will retire in June.

The college did not present requested appropriation amounts or a bill number in the committee presentation; the requests are included in the governor’s budget, Perella said. No formal vote on funding was taken during the hearing.

With the presentation complete, Perella stood for questions from senators.