Division of Ag faculty making connections with university in Mexico

FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS

   Mike Looper and Daniel Rivera recently presented to a collegiate cattlemen's group through an informational webinar in November that connected students and faculty between the U of A and Universidad Autonoma de Neuvo Leon in Monterrey, Mexico. 

   Looper is a professor and head of the Department of Animal Science in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, and Rivera is director of the Southwest Research and Extension Center in Hope, a 1,185-acre laboratory managed by the University of System Division of Agriculture through its Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

   After being contacted by the group in Mexico, Looper and Rivera planned a webinar via Facebook Live to share about the department, research opportunities and experience among faculty members, as well as the background of the Hope extension center.

   Rivera was contacted by the group at UANL after presenting during an Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service webinar in July, where he spoke about raising cattle in a drought. The university group, a club named Charolais-Charbray Juvenil, saw the webinar, which led to many questions about cow management during droughts. After hearing responses from Rivera, the UANL students and faculty became interested in the U of A System Division of Agriculture.

   After making the connection between the Division of Agriculture, education and academics, and animal science, UANL students and faculty have proposed plans to visit Arkansas next spring to tour the Southwest Research and Extension Center, various livestock operations and Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station farms and labs associated with animal science in Fayetteville.

   More potential collaborations are in the works. ∆