|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
EDINBURG — After planting the seeds of this project over two years ago, UTRGV’s Hub of Prosperity, a 5-acre research and education farm, is now cultivating their effort in a new mobile learning lab that takes their sustainable agriculture teachings all across the Rio Grande Valley.
Located behind the Edinburg First Methodist Church, the hub is managed by the UTRGV Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Advancement and the UTRGV Agroecology Program.
The farm’s main goal is to be a regional model for local sustainable food systems that encourages civic engagement, develops scientific capacity around agriculture and improves food self reliance for the UTRGV and Valley community.
With three full-time staff members, 10 undergrad and graduate students and volunteers, the farm has expanded in the five years since it was established in 2019. It includes farm plots for community members, university students and beginners, as well as a chicken coop, an outdoor classroom and several shipping containers for equipment and storage.
The latest addition to the farm is the mobile agriculture learning lab with the purpose of taking their agricultural education directly to communities across the Valley to engage with farmers, aspiring farmers and underserved communities.
Project Specialist Mario Fierro said the mobile lab is sponsored by the Natural Resources Conservation Service through the U.S Department of Agriculture.
“The trailer was created for outreach to Hispanic farmers and ranchers as well as urban gardeners like students at apartments or people that don’t necessarily have land to grow,” Fierro said. “We’re doing outreach to them and we’re teaching them 12 topics from beginning land prep, all the way to the end from the harvest and selling at a market.”
Offering 12 topics of agriculture education on the farm to students and community members and also having a market every Saturday, Fierro said with the mobile lab, the farm will be able to expand their outreach to communities across the Valley, from Hidalgo to Cameron to Starr counties.
The mobile lab is built to serve in various ways such as a market space, workshop and lab space with Wi-Fi. The trailer also features storage for tools, garden beds and even a small tractor.
“We are growing others that are fostering that interest by helping them grow, whether it’s in their backyard or here at the hub, or community gardens so that at some point they’ll eventually be working at a larger scale,” he said.
Fierro said the mobile lab is a showcase of all the work that the Hub of Prosperity has done over the last five years.
“This is like our mobile exhibit,” he said. “We’ve already been (out in the community) and show up in person with a team but this brings a certain presence.”
Fierro said the total cost of the funding on the project was at least $100,000 with hours included for the staff and students that assisted.
Being proud of the project coming to fruition, he said a main idea for the mobile lab was to bring communities together through agriculture.
“It’s about this idea of planting now and then harvest later and it’s gonna be a way that we can help each other,” Fierro said. “A lot of times, the workshops bring people together from all different kinds of backgrounds … but they have this similar interest and food connects a lot of people. We have time to have dinner and well, this is even further than that, we’re growing our food together.”
The mobile lab makes its first appearance in the community with a collaboration with the Museum of South Texas History in the Farm Life Series from March 12-14. Participants will immerse themselves in activities on the farm reflecting the rich agricultural history of the Valley.
For more information on the mobile learning lab or the UTRGV Hub of Prosperity, visit utrgv.edu/sara.
