An $80,000 contribution will turn a barn into a modern broiler house
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Ag students at Arkansas State University will benefit from a recent donation.
Peco Foods, a poultry products provider for multiple industries, is donating $80,000 to the school to renovate a barn into a modern broiler house.
This will give students opportunities to practice with poultry.
Arkansas leads the U.S. leaders in poultry production, the Arkansas Farm Bureau says.
The state second in the nation for total pounds of broiler meat produced – about 5.7 billion pounds annually.
Poultry is also the leading industry of animal agriculture in Arkansas, accounting for about 40 percent of total cash receipts and providing over 40,000 jobs.
But despite its presence in the state, poultry, until this donation, didn’t have a spot at Arkansas State University.
The donation from Peco Foods changes that.
“Having an experimental site like we will have where you can test those different things is important not only for our students but for the staff,” Mickey Latour, dean of agriculture, told KAIT8. “They can see how you test one (animal) versus another and then look at all the characteristics of the carcass.”
Arkansas State isn’t the only school in the state to receive a donation to benefit its ag students.
The University of Arkansas recently accepted a $250,000 gift from the Arkansas Corn and Grain Sorghum Board to build a new facility at the Jackson County Extension Center.