8/26/2011

AAES, Extension Join Gulf Water-Quality Alliance

AUBURN, Ala.—The Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and their counterparts in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas have teamed up with the nonprofit Gulf of Mexico Alliance in an effort to find ways to balance agricultural needs with improved water quality in the Gulf.

For the nonprofit alliance, the new partnership with the Gulf-bordering members of the Association of Southern Region Extension Directors and the Southern Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors will bring access to the expertise of agricultural scientists at Auburn and throughout the South in critical areas such as nutrient management.

Nutrient management, one of the alliance’s top priorities, is a process farmers use to apply fertilizer to their fields in a way that maximizes crop yields while minimizing runoff and groundwater contamination.

Bill Batchelor, director of the AAES, says Experiment Station researchers will bring extraordinary depth and breadth to the scientific issues relating to Gulf of Mexico ecosystems.

“This partnership will leverage the work being conducted by each of the partner states and provide a framework for collaboration on important problems that affect the Gulf Coast region,” he says.

“Mutually beneficial” is how Alabama Extension Director Gaines Smith describes the new affiliation.

“Cooperative Extension has connected the people to the research-based information developed in the land-grant universities for more than a century,” Smith says. “An enhanced working relationship with research scientists and other agencies in the Gulf Coast states will enable Extension to better serve the people, businesses and communities of Alabama and the entire Gulf Coast region.”

The Gulf of Mexico Alliance was established in 2004 to enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf region, primarily by encouraging collaboration among government agencies, businesses, colleges and universities and other nongovernmental organizations.

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OFFICE OF AG COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING
Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
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