University of Florida

Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

Agricultural Experiment Station

The Morrill Act of 1862, the Hatch Act of 1887 and subsequent acts including the Bankhead-Jones Act of 1935 established the research missions within the land grant universities and created the state agricultural experiment stations. (Legislation acceding to the Hatch Act was passed by the Florida legislature in 1885).

Thus created through federal and state legislation, the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station is one of the formerly independent organizations from which UF/IFAS was formed in 1964, and is now an administrative as well as a functional area within the greater UF/IFAS body. Within the UF/IFAS mission, the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station (which includes all UF/IFAS research and education centers) is the entity through which the university cooperates with the federal and other state governments in conducting research programs related to food, agriculture, human and natural resources, and the environment.

A dean is responsible for the total statewide research efforts in UF/IFAS and is designated Dean for Research. This individual also serves as Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station. The UF/IFAS statewide research program is administered through academic departments and research and education centers throughout Florida. These departments and centers jointly pursue the mission to define, clarify and solve important problems facing farmers, business people, public decision makers and other citizens of Florida.

Wherever faculty are located, their mission is statewide in scope. Few other state land grant universities in the nation have as high a percentage (~40%) of its food and agriculture research faculty located away from the main campus. Regardless of location, all researchers have appointments as faculty within a UF/IFAS academic department, and therefore have access to the educational and scientific resources of the University of Florida. Research faculty interact with their colleagues within UF/IFAS departments and research and education centers, others within the university, and with the clientele being served. Thus, duplication of research effort is avoided and researchers receive broad input to define and establish priorities and implement research programs aimed at meeting those priorities.

Futher Information

UF/IFAS Office of the Dean for Research (RESEARCH@GNV.IFAS.UFL.EDU).