Congressman Blunt Announces $2.9 Million Grant for Missouri State for Viticulture Education

September 25, 2007

West Plains, Missouri – Southwest Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt announced $2.927 million in National Science Foundation funding for Missouri State University’s Viticulture and Enology Science & Technology Alliance (VESTA). The grant to Missouri State will be used to provide education to community colleges in 12 states through online training courses about the grape and wine industry.

“I’m pleased to announce this critical funding that will help both our grape and wine industry and the economy of southwest Missouri grow,” Congressman Blunt said.

“This NSF grant allows Missouri State University through the Viticulture and Enology Science & Technology Alliance to continue to play a key role well into the future.” “This NSF grant will enable Missouri State University’s Viticulture and Enology program to expand and become even more influential for Missouri and all of the Midwest region of the United States,” Missouri State University President Mike Nietzel said. “Our faculty and staff, as well as those in the partner institutions, deserve enormous credit for earning this support based on a nationally competitive process. Their scientific and technical merit has been recognized, and many communities and individuals will now benefit.”

VESTA Principal Investigator and Executive Director Dr. Dale Law, based at Missouri State’s West Plains campus, said the program has drawn 270 students from 27 states over the last three years to the only on-line internet learning program of its kind. Because the program is Internet-based experts in wine and grapes from California, New York and around the nation are able to teach classes.

“The grape and wine industry has seen steady growth and will need educated and highly trained individuals to continue this growth. There is great interest in expanding the program to cover Midwestern states, because the modern grape and wine industry require scientific knowledge in math and related technologies. VESTA provides all of these skills,” Law explained.

The scientific research for VESTA is conducted at the Missouri Fruit Experiment Station in Mountain Grove, which is part of Missouri State University system. The grant recognizes the Mountain Grove facility, where scientific research has been practiced for more than a century, as a “regional center of excellence.”

Initially community colleges in Iowa and Illinois were part of the on-line learning model VESTA started three years ago. Two-year colleges in Oklahoma (Redlands Community College) and Illinois (Rend Lake College) and Iowa (Northeast Iowa Community College) will join the project as it expands into 12 states.

Missouri, which ranks 11th in the nation in wine production, has seen the number of wineries increase from 64 in 1999 to 89 in 2005 with similar increases in surrounding states.. A 2007 study found the grape and wine industry produced a $162 billion benefit to the US economy, including $17 billion in state and federal taxes. There are 930,000 acres of grapes and 4,900 wineries employing 1.1 million people in the US.