In May, the North Carolina Museum of History will debut a new exhibit in downtown Raleigh. The project has been in the making for quite some time, and recently, the project has received a corporate sponsor.
Ken Howard, Director of the NC Museum of History:
“Syngenta has been very kind to come forward with a grant to help us do this project where we are actually taking history outside. Our focus is to show North Carolinians the history of agriculture from the earliest crops that the Indians planted now to the newer crops that are being developed and planted across North Carolina.
It will be on the bicentennial mall which is the area that runs from the Capital down to the state legislative building, right between the history museum and the natural sciences museum. It’s a great space, well over a million people walk through there each year. In the exhibit we are going to be able to plant all of these different crops as well as a new strand of blueberries that NC State has come up with. It’s a great partnership with Syngenta and the state agriculture department.
We have some implements on display in the museum and the ‘Story of North Carolina’ exhibit which features the history of North Carolina. Outside will be just the plants, from the Indians the three sisters, corn, beans and squash; and then more modern crops like cotton and tobacco. We will also have the artisan corn that was recently developed by Syngenta that takes a lot less water to grow. We will be opening in May and the crops will be growing all summer.
We hope this will be a permanent exhibit. Even though in winter as things go dormant we hope to plant some cover crops. Our hope is to keep this going on because agriculture is the largest industry in North Carolina and it’s a very important part of our history.”
Director of the NC Museum of History Ken Howard.
For more information about the N.C. Museum of History, call 919-807-7900 or access ncmuseumofhistory.org.
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