On August 29, the Greenbelt City Council met with representatives of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) for a stakeholder worksession. The discussion included the status of the BARC campus and progress on efforts to increase the occupancy of the buildings and utilization of the center resources and activities and upcoming events. The meeting covered state initiatives, such as maglev, that could potentially affect Greenbelt, BARC and the region.
Attending from BARC were Dr. Charles Onwulata, associate director for the Northeast Area of the Agricultural Research Service, and Dr. Naomi Fukagawa, who for the last three years has served as the director of the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center.
One topic that recurred throughout the meeting was the importance of maintaining agriculture and agricultural research in Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. Onwulata spoke of the importance of BARC’s collaboration with the University of Maryland and other area universities. Fukagawa announced an all-day BARC Symposium Workshop to be held on Thursday, September 20, titled Urban Agriculture Today and Tomorrow: Research for Sustainable Solutions, which is designed to include scholars and other interested community members.
For more on this story, click here to see the September 6 edition of the News Review.