Begin With
South Carolina  KENDALL KIRK

Farming: An outdoor job

The bulk of Kirk’s work has always happened outside the confines of a traditional classroom. A three-time Clemson grad, he remains a teacher at heart, even leading Boy Scout activities and Sunday school classes in his spare time.

It’s in everyone’s best interest to keep South Carolina’s farms profitable and viable, Kirk explains. That’s why Clemson works so closely with the state’s farmers — both at its RECs and via its Extension offices, which are located in all 46 South Carolina counties.

As director of CU-CAT, Kirk builds collaborative relationships between industry and academia to forge farming solutions before they become problems. Everything from rising fertilizer costs to water shortages and increasing competition is being addressed by new technology developed through CU-CAT.

Educating farmers for life, success

Raised in the suburbs of South Carolina’s capital city, Kirk grew up knowing relatively little about farming. He saw what happened in his family’s backyard garden and learned about growing zones and other farming basics while cultivating the occasional food plot in preparation for deer season.

It’s not lost on him how far he’s come over the past three decades. He’s a key part of a precision agriculture program at Clemson that is pioneering innovative farming practices designed to make South Carolina agriculture competitive with the world.

As an undergraduate at Clemson, Kirk had never given much thought to a career in agriculture. Instead, he planned to pursue law and thought he’d like to become an intellectual property attorney. Inspirational faculty mentors and a graduate assistantship at the University’s fish farm, followed by research on designing and developing control systems in aquaculture, paved the way for his work today.

Today, in addition to visiting farmers and connecting with the state’s Extension agents, Kirk teaches primarily nontraditional graduate students how to work smarter, not harder, on the farm. About 80 percent of his graduate students are what Kirk describes as “homegrown ag mechanics.” They know how to run a tractor and drive a four-wheeler; they can turn a wrench, operate a welder, and understand the workings of the machinery, electrical, and pumping systems.

He teaches these students to navigate statistical analysis methods; how to use computers to collect data in the field; to explore spatial information with GIS applications; instruction on electrical control systems; and agricultural engineering design.

And then, Kirk, his colleagues and their respective students — in partnership with farmers across South Carolina — collect data so they can grow knowledge beyond the classroom. Everything from plant height and nitrogen levels in leaf tissue to how much water different sprinkler heads distribute in a field and the optimal speed of peanut-digging and cotton-harvesting machines has a place in their research. Clemson gathers and sorts that information the way farmers cull their crops, pairing the healthiest data findings with researchers’ boots-on-the-ground experiences to provide answers.