President Jim Clements recently held an event at Clemson’s research facility in Florence to announce the McCall Farms Vegetable Breeding Endowment. This project is made possible by a three million dollar gift from the Swink Family, owner of the McCall Farms Cannery in Effingham. This program boosts Clemson’s existing vegetable breeding program known as the Advanced Plant Technology Program. World-renown geneticist, Clemson’s Stephen Kresovich and other research faculty will combine their crop-breeding talents to develop varieties that will allow South Carolina farmers to produce vegetables of the quality and quantity to supply the cannery, providing jobs to its hundreds of workers, and ensuring that farmers remain profitable in the face of extreme changes in temperatures, rain and drought challenges, and other environmental pressures. The Swink family’s generosity will help South Carolina farmers remain profitable and keep their land in production.
Research to help fight enviromental pressures which limit farmers' yields
