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154 WINES&VINES January 2018 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS WINE EAST F redricksburg, Texas—The board overseeing higher education in Texas approved an innovative new program that will allow students at Texas Tech University to earn a degree in local food and wine production. The program will fall under the Department of Plant & Soil Sci- ence and be overseen by viticul- ture and enology professor Ed Hellman. "A lot of universities over the past few decades have gotten away from horticultural crop- production classes," Hellman told Wines & Vines. "But with the local food and farm-to-table-type move- ments, there is much more inter- est in where your food comes from. Consumers are much more interested in that." He added that sustainable production of food and wine is another component of the program, and unlike viticul- ture and enology, the new concen- tration also includes components of sustainable agriculture includ- ing vegetables, fruits and nuts. As the U.S. population grows, Hellman expects the already trendy urban farming and small- acreage production movements will take off in areas like San An- tonio and Austin, which are within commuting distance to the Fred- ricksburg campus where he is based. The concentration also is available to students at Texas Tech's main campus in Lubbock, where the school's viticulture and enology program was first intro- duced in 2010. (That program, too, has since expanded to include the satellite campus in the Texas Hill Country town of Fredricksburg.) While most of the state's grapes are grown in West Texas, accord- ing to Hellman, "The Hill Country is what a lot of people think of as 'Texas wine country.' This is where it all comes together." As of July 2017, Texas was the fifth-largest wine-producing state in terms of cases produced per year. The Lone Star State is home to 294 wineries, according to Wines Vines Analytics, producing 1.8 million cases per year. Career trajectory Graduates could put the new de- gree program to use in multiple ways, Hellman said, adding that an entrepreneurial, production- oriented graduate could start their own operation. And given the program's emphasis on small and urban operations, it wouldn't take a massive investment in land and equipment to get started. O t h e r s , h e s a i d , w i l l g e t plugged into existing operations, be they greenhouses, high-tun- nel fruit and vegetable produc- tion or wineries, which often have small gardens of their own to promote biodiversity and sup- ply their in-house kitchens for hospitality events. "Places that are wine tourism destinations have got to have good restaurants, and the farm- to-table-type restaurants are ex- actly what wine consumers are l o o k i n g f o r, " H e l l m a n s a i d . "There's a need just like there is in the wine industry for trained professionals.…That's why we started the viticulture and enology concentration, and that's why we're expanding to this food and wine production concentration." —Kate Lavin Texas Tech Adds Local Food and Wine Production Concentration " There is much more interest in where your food comes from." —Ed Hellman, Texas Tech