FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/p>\n
Friday, August 6, 2021<\/p>\n
STEPHENVILLE, Texas \u2014 Tarleton State University\u2019s Southwest Regional Dairy Center has received an almost $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.<\/p>\n
The grant will help initiate high-tech communications solutions to share research-based information gathered at Tarleton with producers and extension educators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very excited about this grant and to partner with Dr. (Shuyu) Liu from Texas A&M AgriLife Extension,\u201d said Dairy Center Director Dr. Barbara Jones. \u201cTexas is so large that many extension specialists have trouble connecting with producers, making the dairy center a hub for extension training using a virtual reality platform.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NIFA grant, part of more than $7 million in research funds for the nation\u2019s non-land grant colleges of agriculture, will be used to help meet service and outreach demands of Texas dairy communities.<\/p>\n
The SWRDC is at the forefront of gathering and processing information for Texas dairy farmers. Greater capacity for engaging producers and extension educators is needed across geographically distant groups.<\/p>\n
To address the issue, researchers will employ 360 Virtual Reality Outreaching Outlet and record VR videos in various areas of farm and manure management. The videos will be used to engage and VR train more producers throughout Texas.<\/p>\n
Additionally, researchers hope to develop an extension training network through the SWRDC to share best practices with producers.<\/p>\n
NIFA grants aim to increase research, education and outreach capacity at non-land grant institutions to support the innovations and workforce needed to sustain agriculture in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tarleton State University’s Southwest Regional Dairy Center has received an almost $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research"],"acf":{"image":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-70-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Academics & Research<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academics & Research<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 6, 2021","modified":"Updated on September 22, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 6, 2021 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on September 22, 2025 3:51 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"Cow with a numbered ear tag in a barn.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53776,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25351\/revisions\/53776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}