Recent News

January 10, 2022

During her senior capstone class in international agriculture, Penn State alumna Abigail Seeley worked on a grant proposal that has proved valuable as she works to become a veterinarian. She had several opportunities to experience international agriculture during her undergraduate years, which fueled her interest in completing the INTAG minor. Those experiences have served her interests at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

January 3, 2022

Penn State entomology and biology professor David Hughes aims to be a disruptor; to him, he said, it's the way things get done. Disturbed by the inequality, he turned his mind to food security. “The idea was to have an expert in a phone that a farmer could use to diagnose her problem,” said Hughes. That idea turned into PlantVillage, an AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled smartphone app and cloud-based knowledge system that would serve as a resource to farmers around the world to learn how to treat diseases.

December 4, 2021

In mid-October, a delegation from La Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (UTadeo ) in Bogotá, Colombia visited Penn State to participate in a week-long WEF-Nexus Colombia Partnership Meeting. This meeting pushed forward the partnership between the two universities within Water, Energy and Food (WEF) Nexus activities.

December 3, 2021

A new program in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is helping students reduce their carbon footprints while studying abroad. The Sustainable and Accessible Study Abroad initiative began last year to encourage students to incorporate sustainable practices into their study abroad experiences by supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

November 30, 2021

Penn State Global has been selected as the recipient of The Forum on Education Abroad’s first Award for Advancing the U.N. SDGs through Education Abroad. Penn State Global partners with the University's academic units and the Sustainability Institute to implement curricular integration, programmatic updates and operational changes to continue its mission of advancing the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.

November 30, 2021

Widely accepted myths that urbanization negatively impacts food and land use biodiversity are incorrect, according to a team of researchers who developed a framework for evaluating this intersection. Their results could also affect nutrition and food insecurity in urban areas.

November 18, 2021

If action isn’t taken to protect the health of the world’s plants, the prognosis for some species is poor, especially in regions that lack plant protection policies and extension services, according to scientists who participated in an international workshop and conference that was co-led by a plant pathologist at Penn State. Held in Toulouse, France, in October, the “Assessing the State of Global Plant Health in Natural and Cultivated Ecosystems” workshop was sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Co-operative Research Programme on Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems and the International Society of Plant Pathology. These international nonprofits address social, economic and environmental challenges.

November 17, 2021

PlantVillage, a platform developed by Penn State researchers that is helping tens of millions of farmers across Africa cope with the immediate challenges of climate change, will be enhanced and expanded thanks to the generosity of Jeff Dean and Heidi Hopper, whose gift includes a commitment to match other donations up to a total of $2.5 million.

November 11, 2021

Melanie Miller Foster, co-founder of the Global Teach Ag Network in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, discussed the role of educators in preparing the next generation of agricultural leaders as an event panelist at the 2021 World Food Prize Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium. Miller Foster participated in a panel led by the secretaries of agriculture from countries in the Northern Hemisphere, including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Mexico Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Victor Manuel Villalobos Arámbula, and Canada Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Marie-Claude Bibeau.

November 8, 2021

Reducing the negative effects of pests, diseases and weeds on crops in a climate-changed world is the goal of a multi-institution team led by Penn State and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the organization’s initiative to end global hunger. The award was announced today (Nov. 6) by Administrator Samantha Power of the United States Agency for International Development at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The grant — up to $39 million total over five years — will establish the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops at Penn State.

October 28, 2021

In rural Ghana, where most rely on farming for survival, families face many challenges, including scarcity of food, running water and electricity. Women carry a hefty workload because they are responsible not just for child-rearing and household tasks but also for farm chores. Though their contributions often leave women with less free time than men, their work is undervalued, and most women are not equal partners in financial decision-making, according to Kaitlin Fischer, a doctoral degree candidate in rural sociology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.