Beverly Hills billionaires give UC Davis $50 million to build agricultural research hub
Two U.S. billionaires have launched a $50 million research center at UC Davis to bring together agricultural and environmental scientists working across the U.S. and around the world.
The Center for Agricultural Systems Integration (CASI) and the UC Davis Center for Agribusiness and Environmental Security (CAES) will bring together more than 50 researchers on an effort to identify and address emerging threats and vulnerabilities to food security and environmental health, and to develop new approaches to address them.
“The Center brings together researchers from academia, industry, and government to advance the understanding of how critical public assets, such as the U.S. agricultural system, can be transformed toward a future that is more sustainable,” said Lisa Hall, director of CASI.
In a news release sent to KUOW by Robert Johnson, a retired environmental scientist and a CAES director, Robert and Janet Johnson made the announcement. The two former agricultural industry billionaires are looking at CAES and CASI to enhance agricultural research and boost the U.S. food supply.
“There are enormous global challenges when it comes to food security. There is an urgent need to invest in the knowledge and tools to address these challenges,” said Johnson.
“But you can’t address the challenges that we’re facing without research,” he said, “and I think this partnership is a wonderful way to address that.”
A UC Davis News Release
The Center for Agricultural Systems Integration (CASI) and the Center for Agribusiness and Environmental Security (CAES) are partnering through a newly established partnership with the California Department of Agricultural Resources (CALDER). The goal of the new partnership is to create a research and outreach hub that will accelerate the scientific and technological research to ensure the future sustainability of the agricultural sector.
CAES is a joint venture established by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and UC Davis’s Department of Agricultural