National Western Center at Center of Ag Innovation Summitt 2.0

An Ag Innovation Summit hosted by Colorado State will brings industry leaders together for a second time to brainstorm and plan the future of how we grow, distribute, and eat food.

The new Western Center in Denver is a few years from opening. But, Professor James Pritchett with College of Ag Sciences says the new billion-dollar center, due to break ground in 2019, will be a huge catalyst for innovation. It's sure to be a topic of discussion.

"The National Western Center will be expanding it size but, probably more important it will become a nexus for investment as it relates to agricultural innovation. We have a lot of small firms and large firms. A lot of interested individuals in the heritage and tradition of agricultural production in Colorado. That's all investing in the cutting edge of providing secure food, safe food and the types of products that meet people's preferences. We'll start to build some of the programming even before we have the physical space down there. We're developing an urban agricultural experiment station. The idea to to work in that space of urban agriculture and rural agriculture and how we bring those together."

The first Ag Innovation summit was held in 2015 and brought together ag innovators who hadn't had the opportunity to network. Now it's time to build on those conversations and look at investing in ideas that will move ag innovations forward.

We'll have more on the Ag Innovation 2.0 September 6 and 7 in Fort Collins in our next report.