Meeting the Challenges Rural Arizona Citizens through the Agricultural Experiment Station.

The Arizona Experiment Station’s ability to deliver on its mission in an environment of shrinking budgets relies on a lot more partnership and politics than ever before.  An important contextual factor is realizing that Arizona has a great deal of poverty coupled with pockets of population density but large land areas that are rural.  Agriculture is very much an economic mainstay of these rural areas, but also an important player in the population pockets.  By providing even small improvements in the agricultural productivity in rural Arizona, we can make dramatic impacts in the lives of more than 2 million rural Arizonans.  Our mission is morphing towards an outwardly focused engagement on what is wanted/needed.