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A ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating the completion of the construction of the NFarms (Nebraska Future Ag Research and Management Systems) facility was held at the University of Nebraska Eastern Nebraska Research, Extension and Education Center (ENREEC) near Mead, Nebraska on Aug. 13, 2025. It was just 364 days before that University representatives and business partners tossed ceremonial scoops of groundbreaking soil while the technological advances that NFarms represents were commemorated with a drone swooping down to collect a soil sample.
Completion of the facility represents a significant milestone for NFarms, offering dedicated space to advance research and foster collaborative partnerships. Derek McLean, dean of the University of Nebraska Agricultural Research Division noted, “Everything that's happening here is really quite amazing and on the forefront of agriculture. This is the place for ag tech innovation.”
The NFarms initiative serves as a test bed for new technologies, as well as platforms, while leveraging the expertise of the university's faculty and staff to help farmers better harness data. The initiative seeks to develop innovative decision-making tools that producers can use for efficient field management. “When you look at the future of agriculture, there are two certainties. One is that the future of the system is going to be more automated. And the other is the need for digital decision support tools”, said Joe Luck, professor of biological systems engineering and associate director of ENREEC. “We have to have more automated systems to help producers out in the field and to deal with issues like labor shortages and management decisions. So digital decision support tools are going to be key, not just to help the farmers along the way, but if we're going to take a robotic system and start to integrate that into a farm operation, it has to have data driven tools behind it.”
NFarms brings together University of Nebraska research and outreach in precision agriculture in collaboration with industry partners into a strategic force aimed at producing those very resources for producers. The newly constructed NFarms facility will help accelerate the NFarms initiative bringing technology and innovative ideas into practical applications for quicker adoption in the field. The NFarms building will serve as a hub for public-private partnerships and ag-focused entrepreneurship – a precision ag testbed for companies and entrepreneurs to test and develop new methods, products, and services. The overarching goal is to develop innovative decision-making tools that producers can use for efficient field management.
Brennan Costello, director with The Combine, a statewide initiative that serves as an incubator and a front door for ag tech startups and founders in Nebraska said, “Nebraska is a place where if you have a startup or if you're a founder that wants to grow something, this is the best place to do it. Having something like NFarms is something that I'm really excited about. What was missing is how do we have a place for these emerging, growing founders that need to test out their technologies and what they're doing? This is a perfect place to do it and I think that the way that these companies can access these farms and facilities is so much easier, it's so much quicker.”
Utilizing 3,000 crop production acres out of ENREEC’s 9,600 acres, NFarms can operate on a scale that not only exceeds anything available at any other university for precision-ag research, but is also comparable to real-world production conditions.
James Petersen, Dairy and Livestock Technology Integration Manager with the John Deere looks forward to continuing partnerships with the University and said, “For sustainability in the future, you really have to focus on data. We need practices that will make us profitable and sustainable to continue.” Peterson noted recent research with a forage harvester at ENREEC and that he was impressed with the scale of the facility for research. He said, “You start asking questions you didn't know you had. This isn't a 10-acre research plot that we have no idea how it works on 10,000 acres.”
ENREEC includes row crops, pastures and nearly 10,000 head of livestock - providing the ideal setting for integrated research and opportunities to utilize regenerative ag systems. Designed to be a hub for cutting-edge technology and research, the new building is located at ENREEC. Row-crop fields directly outside the building and the Feedlot Innovation Center just down the road are reminders of the opportunities to accelerate research to fields, farms and ranches.
Steve Tippery, co-founder and CEO of ag tech company RealmFive said “Companies like us need places to test our equipment, our products. ENREEC is a nice, diversified operation here where that can be done. There's also a lot of research opportunities that can happen.”
The state-of-the-art building serves as the heart of the NFarms initiative, but the functionality of NFarms reaches beyond the ENREEC site. NFarms also partners with Nebraska growers and producers, commodity organizations, as well as Nebraska Extension, all working together to accelerate the deployment of technological advancements in agricultural operations. The partnership with the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network, provides for real world research and is also a direct conduit for sharing information about the latest developments.
Vice Chancellor of the Institute of Ag and Natural Resources and Vice President for Agriculture Tiffany Heng-Moss said said, “Our partners and supporters have been instrumental in ensuring that this vision for NFarms has become a reality. We talk about the importance of our research, discovery and innovation and then we have Nebraska extension that takes that research and innovation and connects it with the producers in Nebraska and frankly around the world. We also have NFarms as a wonderful experiential learning platform in which our talented undergrad and graduate students are going to be able to take what they're learning in their classrooms and they're going to be able to connect that in a real-world context. And then finally, living out the land grant mission, it's a place for us to be a connector with industry partners, with entrepreneurs, with startups.”
James Herrick with Sentinel Ag noted he is excited for further collaboration with the University through NFarms. Sentinel Ag is an ag tech startup developed by Jackson Stansell stemming from his Nitrogen management studies while a master's student at UNL. Herrick said, “He decided to roll his graduate work into a full-time company in 2022 and we've been operating commercially since then. He noted, “The University has been an integral part of our company on the research side of things. Having the ability to take what we learned through on-farm research and roll it into a commercial operation has been huge for us. We can show producers what we've been able to replicate year over year using actual on-farm research data in true full field sizes.”
NFarms is poised to provide Nebraska producers with practical, scalable, and affordable solutions. As technology becomes increasingly integral for producers, NFarms will play a crucial role in shaping the future of agriculture.
