Website shows impact of land-grant universities

COLUMBIA, Mo.– The University of Missouri has announced its participation in the recently launched National Land-grant Impacts website (http://landgrantimpacts.tamu.edu), a centralized resource that highlights teaching, research and extension efforts by land-grant universities.

The website provides access to university or region-specific impact stories that document the research and extension programming planned, performed and implemented by MU and other land-grant universities. As a cooperative effort of the land-grant universities, it represents a single voice for the Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension arms of the land-grant universities.

“The Land-Grant Impacts website is a new tool that will better inform the American people and the international community of the significant agricultural research, education and extension impacts taking place at land grant universities across our nation,” said Sonny Ramaswamy, director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “This website will help policymakers and the public learn more about this work that is partially supported with NIFA funding,”

Impact statements relay the results and impact of research and extension education programming. Information lists include contact information for university research and extension project leads, and updates on funding, project implementation or extension education impact.

Impact statements are categorized according to six focus areas: Food Security; Nutrition and Health; Youth, Family and Communities; Environmental Stewardship; Agricultural Systems; and Energy and Bioproducts.

The site currently has 60 University of Missouri impact statements encompassing a broad range of disciplines.

The website also informs users about the history of the land-grant university system and how its mission has evolved since the system’s founding. The University of Missouri, like all land-grant universities, is committed to a three-fold mission of teaching, research and extension.

Founded in 1839, the University of Missouri became a land-grant university as a result of the Morrill Act of 1862, which granted each state funding to charter a university with the purpose to teach agriculture, military tactics and the mechanic arts as well as classical studies to help members of the working class obtain a liberal, practical education.

MU is one of the 238 public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems and affiliated organizations represented by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The land-grant university system has affiliations in all 50 states, the four U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, Mexico and Canada.