Last August I became the vice president for agriculture and dean of the College of Agriculture at LSU. This past year has by far been the most incredible and inspiring experience that I've ever had. This is exclusively due to the people I've had the opportunity to meet and work alongside. This also has been a truly extraordinary year for the LSU AgCenter and the College of Agriculture.

One area where we have demonstrated significant proficiency is in grant awards. Over the past five years, the annual amount of grant awards has hovered between $30 million and $32.5 million. However, over the last 12 months, AgCenter and College of Agriculture faculty have been awarded more than $46 million in grants. This is an increase of 50% in one year.

Our research program is foundational to our support for the agricultural industry and rural communities throughout the state. The larger and more impactful our research program, the better we are in serving the state. Likewise, we are continuing to experience big wins with grants for our Cooperative Extension Service, enabling us to offer highly impactful, cutting-edge programming that helps drive community stability.

Another way we can gauge our success and impact is relative to how much others are willing to invest in us. Our state general fund budget was increased with annually recurring funds by about 5.5%. This generous investment allows us to invest in top-notch talent to continue driving growth in strategic areas such as precision agriculture. Recruiting the highest caliber talent in our focal areas is a primary strategy for us going forward.

We also received an unprecedented $11 million in one-time funding for research station equipment. This will provide us with tools to carry out state-of-the-art demonstration projects for local producers. This infusion of new support will be catalytic for us as we continue elevating our impact for the agricultural industry across the state and beyond.

We also had tremendous success in fundraising to support AgCenter and College of Agriculture programming. We have several foundations, and across all of them, our supporters this year donated an impressive $4.5 million. This is a 5.5% increase.

We have also had profoundly impactful scholarships from Carl and Patty Newton, among many others, that will allow our College of Agriculture students to stay in school and graduate in a timely manner. These kinds of investments speak volumes about the work the AgCenter and college employees undertake every day.

We are setting very high goals:

• Becoming a top ag research school.
• Escalating grant making to $75 million a year.
• Increasing philanthropic donations to $10 million a year.
• Increasing college enrollments.
• Bringing some of the top talent in the country here.

These are audacious goals, but if we don't say it, we never get a chance of achieving them. We are a public organization. We serve the state. We serve the citizens of Louisiana. We owe it to them to be the very best we can be. To achieve it, we have to believe it.

Around the state, people within our organization and outside of our organization are telling me they feel the energy, the inspiration and the excitement. They feel a renewed sense of commitment. They feel like the great giant that is LSU agriculture is on the move, and they all want to be part of it. We can win as a team. We're winning for Louisiana.

Sincerely,

Matt Lee

Matt Lee is the vice president for agriculture for LSU and dean of the College of Agriculture.

This article appeared in the summer 2023 edition of Louisiana Agriculture magazine.

Matt Lee