An agriculture and food technology park can serve as an excellent mechanism to transfer technology derived at State Agricultural Experiment Stations. At the same time the park stimulates creation and growth of new businesses and the accompanying jobs.

State Agricultural Experiment Stations (SAESs) are the bulwark for the nation’s agriculture and food research enterprise. The intellectual power housed within SAESs is not only very helpful to the traditional agricultural industries, but it can be useful to a wide range of commercial businesses. Commercialized technology derived from SAES research can have a local economic impact only if the businesses derived from that technology are local.

The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES), in partnership with local municipalities (Ontario County and City of Geneva) over a period of eight years developed a concept plan, a business plan and completed two marketing studies before creating the Cornell Agriculture and Food Technology Park, Inc. (CAFTP). CAFTP is a not-for-profit corporation created to develop, manage and market a 72-acre parcel of former research plots into a business campus where agriculture and food companies can locate, conduct research, and develop new products either in collaboration with Station scientists, or license technologies developed by Station scientists. In so doing, the Park, in collaboration with the Experiment Station, creates new jobs and the need for secondary services. This process is true economic development.

Because the development of the Cornell Agriculture and Food Technology Park is an economic development project, over $7 million dollars have been committed by local, state, and federal agencies. The first building, a business incubator and multi-tenant facility, was completed in 2005. Now 12 businesses are located in the incubator, three of those businesses will use technologies derived from NYSAES research and now represents 40 new jobs. The incubator is at 80 percent build-out and a new building is in the design stage. A projection of the Park’s impact indicates that nearly 1000 new jobs will be created upon complete build-out of the park in 10-15 years. Of significant importance is how the development of the park has caused the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, as well as the university, to add economic development as a component of its land grant mission. The park also has a positive influence on the Experiment Station, including: creation of new research funding opportunities; opportunities for faculty entrepreneurs, job opportunities for students, spouses or partners; and a stimulating atmosphere that can attract and retain world-class scientists.