Mr. Robert G. Britt, President of American Ag-Tec International, Ltd. located at 1711 Woolsey Street Delavan, has recently returned from Albuquerque, NM where he presented a formal Abstract Report to NASA.

The formal presentation of this research paper was made before the Space Technology & Applications International Forum which was sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Britt’s Abstract titled "Production of Potato Minitubers Using Advanced Environmental Control Technologies Developed for Growing Plants in Space" was a description of the work completed by American Ag-Tec International in cooperation with the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR), a NASA Commercial Space Center located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Britt, and American Ag-Tec International, Ltd., are responsible for implementation of a new biotechnology process for the fast-growth culture of pathogen-free potato minitubers which was originated in Asia, was discovered by Ag-Tec then tested at the University of Wisconsin during 1993. The nature of the technology required a labor-intensive process which was too sensitive in application to commercialize. In 1996 NASA entered the research phase of the technology mechanization through WCSAR in Madison. WCSAR provided access to closed environment plant growth chamber technology which they developed for a space experiment growing potato plantlets into small tubers aboard the Shuttle Columbia in late 1995 using the Microgravity Laboratory aboard the shuttle on space flight USML-2.

The breakthrough agricultural technology employs the use of advanced computerization and controlled atmosphere BioChambers in the production of potato minitubers and is named Quantum Tubers™. This new technology has the capacity to produce as many as 20,000,000 pathogen-free minitubers per year in a biomanufacturing facility. The net effect of this technology will reduce the need for field multiplication of seed potatoes by as many as 5 to 7 years, and will dramatically lower the cost of early generation seed potato to potato farmers.

Worldwide interest in Ag-Tec’s biomanufacturing process has also been generated by the U.S. Government having been listed by the White House as the top Russian development project on the Gore-Chernomyrden Commission, and also being a participant of the Gore-Mubarek Joint Economic Partnership in Egypt.