Philip Morris USA has given $490,050 to support academic, research and extension programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University.
This funding will support a range of programs and projects, according to College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Durward Bateman.
The Philip Morris gift will be used to support student scholarships and internships, fellowships for agents of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service and to provide support for N.C. State's Pesticide Residues Laboratory. In particular, $25,000 will go toward the Durward and Shirley Bateman Scholarship Endowment in honor of Dean Durward Bateman who retires this month as dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
A number of tobacco research projects will receive funding through the gift, including tobacco breeding programs and efforts to better understand tomato spotted-wilt virus and Granville wilt resistance. Research into cut-strip curing, a method of chopping tobacco leaves before curing, also will receive funding.
This gift brings Philip Morris' total support for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to $632,050 for this year. The company already has given $125,000 for the Flue-cured Bale Project and $17,000 to support the Tobacco Grower Short Course.