Grant To Help Build Agriculture Technology Center

A $50,000 Wells Fargo grant given to the Vision Brookings Foundation will help build a technology commercialization center in Brookings.

The $2 million Agriculture Technology Center for Rural Enterprise will be a 30,000-square-foot sustainable development facility.

The Brookings Economic Development Corporation center will enable the integration of individual, pilot-scale technologies into production systems and establish new agri-businesses led by entrepreneurs in rural communities.

Officials say two private businesses formed around South Dakota State University-licensed research are ready to lease the center once it's built. Cyanosun Energy produces high value drop-in fuels and chemicals by converting carbon dioxide and sunlight. Prairie AquaTech produces aquaculture feed by converting plant-derived carbohydrates into highly-concentrated protein.

Construction of the new center will begin in the spring of 2013.