Making grains: Tar Heel ag-biotechnology companies and schools are investing more in research and development for crops.

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When North Carolina State University was founded in 1887, its leaders wanted to establish a college free from elitist notions that the higher-education system should be reserved for a select few. The children of blue-collar workers should have a place to advance themselves, they thought. The school was created with support from the federal Morrill Act of 1862, under which the U.S. government donated land to states to establish colleges, now known as land-grant universities, and to teach agriculture and mechanics. N.C. State has become a leader in agricultural research as staff and students tackle big-picture issues. In October 2013, the university began public discussions about the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative, a plan to establish the Tar Heel state as the world leader in plant-sciences research and innovation.

The initiative includes building a 190,000-square-foot Plant Sciences Research Complex on the university's Centennial Campus. The building, expected to cost $180 million, will bring together public and private entities for interdisciplinary research to enhance the world's food security, production practices, water resources, nutrition and environmental sustainability. The project needs a commitment of $18 million to get started. A team from N.C. State University and the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services plans to ask the state for $9 million in planning funds after it completes a private fundraising effort for the other half. "We have such breadth and depth of support," says Steven Lommel, director of North Carolina Agricultural Research Service and associate dean for research at N.C. State University. "We're aggressively fundraising from commodity groups." After raising $7.5 million through February, Lommel is confident the project will reach its goal. The initiative should expand N.C. State's plant-science research, which he calls a "bit of a cottage industry' to involve plant breeders, pathologists, engineers, physicists, economists, mathematicians and others. Organizers believe a multitier approach could lead to increased crop yields, nutrition diversification, sustainability and expanded growing seasons. These advancements would go a long way in helping the food system double production to feed a global population estimated by the United Nations to be more than 9 billion by 2050.

The research at N.C. State and other Triangle universities is one reason more bioagricultural companies are coming to the...