Four regional ARS ag utilization centers are celebrating 75 years of scientific excellence. The centers, spread throughout the country, are celebrating innovative achievements and improved methods of ensuring product quality, detecting foodborne pathogens, and creating bio-based fuels among other things.

The centers, which celebrate their 75th anniversaries during the remainder of 2015 and start of 2016, are the: Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC) in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania; Western Regional Research Center (WRRC) in Albany, California; National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR) in Peoria, Illinois; and Southern Regional Research Center (SRRC) in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The centers were established circa 1940 to create new, value-added uses for surpluses of region-specific crops and their byproducts, notes Rob Griesbach, deputy assistant administrator for ARS in Beltsville, Maryland.

Today, the mission of the centers’ scientists remains very much the same—albeit with an expanded list of crops, consumer expectations and marketing challenges.

Read more about each individual research center here.