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A joint project between Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and The Ohio State University focused on counteracting the skilled labor shortage in the meat and poultry industry has secured a grant totaling $255,117 from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
Provided through the USDA’s 1890 Capacity Building Grants (CBG) Program, the grant will support an educational project at PVAMU called the “Student Workforce Development Program Promoting Experiential Learning for The Meat and Poultry Industry.” Utilizing an active-learning approach, the project aims to help high school students and PVAMU undergraduates thrive in the areas of agriculture, food safety, nutrition, and food security and achieve career success in the meat and poultry industry.
“PVAMU shares the USDA’s commitment to reinforcing and expanding teaching, research, and extension programs focused on food and agricultural sciences,” said PVAMU Vice President of Research & Innovation Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA. “This grant supports a project that will allow students to work alongside and learn from faculty mentors and industry experts and gain the essential knowledge and skills to address complex challenges facing society and the rapidly growing fields of food and agriculture.”
As stated in the project proposal, implementation of the program will “significantly enhance the research, extension, and teaching capacity at both institutions and increase the number of well-trained, underrepresented minorities pursuing a career in the meat and poultry industry.”
Led by Lea Ann Kinman, Ph.D., a research scientist (Meat Science/Laboratory Services) at PVAMU’s Cooperative Agricultural Research Center, the project plans to provide supervised activities in meat and poultry processing, faculty mentorship to help develop communication and leadership skills, and education-extension-related activities designed to enhance industry knowledge and 21st-century occupational competencies.
This collaborative program will assist in the development of a passionate and qualified workforce by introducing students to meat science, generating increased interest in this area of study, and supplying students with vital industry-related skills to excel as professionals.
Co-Principal Investigators on the project include Tamra Tolen, Ph.D., and Milton Daley, Ph.D., Assistant Professors in PVAMU’s Department of Agriculture, Nutrition and Human Ecology, and Ohio State’s Lyda G. Garcia, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Animal Sciences.
May 17, 2023 - Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU)
