Outreach & Initiatives
Bobcat Blend
Bobcat Blend is a faculty managed, student-run and grant-supported research and teaching-oriented waste management campus composting program at Texas State University. The goals of the organization are to teach students, faculty and staff through daily operations and development of habits the environmental, economic, and intrinsic values of composting, in the cafeterias and in the classrooms, labs and landscapes on campus.
Bobcat Bloom
The Bobcat Bloom floral program is administered through the horticulture program in the Department of Agriculture at Texas State University (San Marcos, TX) and began in 2005/2006 as a means of fundraising to obtain additional resources for the horticulture program. Students grow plants in horticulture courses and are then involved in learning to market the products to actual on-campus clients. The Bobcat Bloom program also serves the campus community by offering discounted floral products to the departments and student organizations for various on-campus events.
EverGreen
To overcome historic barriers related to low retention and graduation rates of Hispanic students in Agriculture and STEM fields, EverGreen's goal is to increase the number of Hispanic students with advanced technical degrees at the food-water-energy intersection. To meet this goal, we will train a diverse future workforce with the leadership and cross-disciplinary skills in science, technology and innovation to solve today's complex agricultural problems - specifically those due to a changing climate, widespread food insecurity, and the lack of available water.
Fish Innovation Lab
The Fish Innovation Lab supports and links research partners around the globe to identify, develop, and scale up promising methodologies and technologies for local fish farming systems, and to intensify and diversify major production systems where the poor and undernourished are concentrated.
Small Producers Initiative
SPI's mission is to provide research, outreach and extension to historically under-served small and mid-sized farmers and ranchers in Texas. Small and mid-sized farms are defined as those with a gross cash farm income (GCFI) of less than $499,999. This includes starter farms under 1 acre to ranches or farms of several hundred acres.
