Steve King Email and Phone Number

Spent almost 10 years working in corporate agricultural research, giving me a unique perspective of the status of our current food production system. The increasing involvement of corporate decisions based more on profit ("short-term return on investment to shareholders") and less on environmental sustainability, food & farm safety, and needs of the small grower lead me to leave Seminis shortly before they were purchased by Monsanto. While I strongly believe the future of agriculture production needs to take advantage of new and innovative production techniques, I think a thorough investigation of their long-term implications on the environment, farm and food safety, and long-term sustainability is necessary. Molecular tools are sometimes beneficial in reducing our environmental impact, food safety and long-term sustainability, but too often the findings are never fully investigated in real-world field situations. Many research universities have lost the ability to do proper field trials to fully investigate potential impacts of new technologies. My goal is to maintain a working research farm where discoveries in the lab can be fully evaluated, looking at environmental impacts, long-term sustainability and food and farm safety, in addition to yield and quality. Research interests include developing new technologies that will benefit small-scale, local vegetable producers, such as grafting watermelon and tomato for disease resistance, stress tolerance and improved quality and yield. I am also interested in the health benefits of vegetables and am working on bettering our understanding of the health benefits of specific nutrients in watermelon. My research at Millican Farms is investigating low-cost geothermal heating systems, organic fertility management, rainwater collection and alternative energy sources.Specialties: Vegetable research and production.