2008 Walter Barnard Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in University Public Service and Outreach

Paul E. Sumner

Paul E. Sumner, a biological and agricultural engineer, has served farmers in Georgia and the Southeast for more than 25 years. He works directly with farmers, county agents and equipment manufacturers to develop and modify products to increase crop production and decrease environmental contamination. His work on safer, more efficient fertilizer and pesticide application techniques and on tobacco curing and storage has saved farmers millions of dollars.

Since 1991, Sumner has conducted more than 80 chemical application clinics and hands-on workshops for farmers around the country. He demonstrates proper storage, mixing, loading and application techniques for chemicals used in field sprayers and aerial application. Increased chemical application efficiency and safety saves Georgia farmers more than $600,000 every year.

Sumner also has developed safer, more cost-effective methods for curing, storing and shipping tobacco. As a result of his Barn Foam Insulation Removal Program, approximately 80 percent of urethane foam insulation a common contaminant in Georgia’s tobacco-curing barns has been removed. Sumner’s 1997 Tobacco Baling Program led to all of the flue-cured tobacco in Georgia being sold in bales instead of tied up in burlap sheets.

In 1995, he received both the Georgia and the National Association of County Agricultural Agents Distinguished Service Award. He also is a state winner of both the National and the Georgia Association of County Agricultural Agents’ Environmental Protection Responsible Use of Pesticides award. He has won eight Blue Ribbon Extension Communication Awards for his publications, which include 27 national and regional articles, 37 newsletter articles, 10 journal articles, nine extension handbooks and training manuals, 52 extension bulletins and circulars, and two educational videos. A Web site he created about effective chemical application, sprayer nozzle selection and equipment use has received more than 8,200 hits since its launch in 2002.