Latest News

May 25, 2018

Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is leading a consortium of land-grant universities in the United States that have pledged support for continued reform and development of the agricultural and rural sectors in Ukraine, a sovereign state in Eastern Europe that was once referred to as "the breadbasket of Europe," a nod to its fertile soil and abundant grain fields.

May 14, 2018

Use of the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 could help to breed cacao trees that exhibit desirable traits such as enhanced resistance to diseases, according to Penn State plant scientists.

April 23, 2018

Visiting other countries to cultivate relationships and exchange information about innovative agricultural practices and research — with the intention of imparting that knowledge to clients back home — has been a long-standing endeavor of Penn State Extension educators.

March 28, 2018

For the past few decades, Israel has been a hotbed of innovation and technological exploration.

March 21, 2018

Faculty and graduate students in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences illustrated how their research touches every corner of the world during the inaugural Global Gallery, a symposium hosted by the International Agriculture and Development dual-title graduate program (INTAD) and its student association.

March 8, 2018

The USAID funded Women in Agriculture Network (WAgN): Honduras project is currently working with an indigenous women's non-government organization in western Honduras to promote gender equity. Implemented by Zamorano University (Honduras) and a team of Penn State faculty, the gender-integrated Farmer Field School provides a blend of horticulture technical skills and gender focused awareness.

March 2, 2018

Access to wood fuels for cooking must be considered when formulating policy to deal with food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, according to researchers who advocate expanding the effort to improve wood-fuel systems and make them more sustainable.

March 2, 2018

Penn State has for the seventh year been recognized among the nation's top producers of Peace Corps volunteers. With 54 undergraduate alumni serving overseas and working in fields such as agriculture, education, environment, health, community economic development and youth development, the University is No. 13 on the Peace Corps' 2018 rankings of colleges and universities in the large school category.

February 25, 2018

Dr. Carolyn Sachs, Professor Emeritus and instrumental leader of the Gender, Agriculture, Energy and Environment Initiative, discusses women's role in "preserving biodiversity through farmer control of seeds" in a recent publication for the United Nations. Dr. Sachs will also be speaking at the 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women later this March.

February 24, 2018

AIARD is pleased to announce that the application for the 2018 Future Leaders Forum is now available! As part of the annual Future Leaders Forum in Washington, DC, fellows attend the annual Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development conference and additional programming just for Future Leaders. Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis to students who have a sincere interest in international agriculture and rural development issues and their solutions.

February 21, 2018

Advocating for policies and programs that support local agriculture, Lyn Garling, co-owner of Over the Moon Farm and member of the Pennsylvania Women's Agriculture Network, participates in the Farmer Fly-In program, meeting with legislators in Washington D.C. to advocate for programs including farmers markets and policies that support local food security.

February 20, 2018

Marilyn McPheron still wells up when she talks about her students. "They would come into my office and say 'you changed my life,'" McPheron, former study abroad coordinator in the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences Office of International Programs, said. "It still overwhelms me to think something I did had that kind of impact."

February 19, 2018

Craft chocolate — made with fine flavor cacao beans and valued for its distinctive flavors and high quality — is gaining a fast following, and research underway in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is aimed at helping bean growers and bar makers benefit from this trend.

December 30, 2017

Small-holder farmers in Kenya have the capacity and desire to play a major role in the scale-up of biofuel production from agroforestry, according to a Penn State forest economist, who led a study in the East African country.

December 19, 2017

Students enrolled in a food science embedded course got a taste of something different for Thanksgiving this year. Over a week during the holiday break, participants in "Global perspectives on agricultural and food science in India" traveled to the city of Hyderabad to explore the food system in India while learning about the role that agriculture plays in the country's booming economy.

December 17, 2017

Food safety practices that Americans take for granted — washing hands with soap, refrigeration, and not cutting raw meat and vegetables on the same surface without disinfection — are not widely practiced in other places around the world, and researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences want to change that.

December 12, 2017

From December 5-8, 2017, faculty from Penn State's Gender in Agriculture, Energy and Environment Initiative participated in the CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research at their first annual scientific conference and capacity development workshop in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

November 7, 2017

"I can honestly say it would have been easier for me to climb out of a 100-foot well, though I would not have learned nearly as much." That is how Mannaa I. Mannaa, a native of Egypt, described his dream to attend Penn State, a journey that began when he stepped off a plane at University Park Airport on a frigid day in January 2005 and continues today as he pursues a goal of earning a medical doctorate.

November 7, 2017

A new summer internship, which will be available to undergraduate students with a veterinary research interest, is the most recent in a series of collaborations spanning a century-old partnership between Penn State and South China Agricultural University.

November 6, 2017

With its 50-year-old E. coli Reference Center, Penn State long has been at the forefront in isolating bacteria from animals, humans and the environment. The University will continue its leading role Nov. 6-8 when it hosts an international group of experts to propose how to transition one of the most fundamental tests for E. coli into a genomics-based assay.

October 31, 2017

Entomologists from Penn State are working to apply what they have learned by studying the Mid-Atlantic region's brown marmorated stink bug infestation — which peaked between 2010 and 2013 — to similar recent problems impacting the Republic of Georgia in eastern Europe.

October 23, 2017

Four new Fulbright Scholars, who arrived at the College of Agricultural Sciences in August, are looking to economics, sociology, and soil and plant science research for ways to put Colombia at the forefront of the world's cacao production. Under the guidance of faculty at Penn State, they will attempt to tackle some of the country's most pervasive issues, from education to production challenges and corruption.

October 12, 2017

This year, two graduate students from Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, Ilse Huerta Arredondo and Celize Christy, will represent the University at World Food Prize events in Des Moines, Iowa, Oct.18-20.

October 11, 2017

Herr, a member of Schreyer Honors College, is a senior in the Community, Environment and Development (CED) major in College of Agricultural Sciences with a minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The CED major is an interdisciplinary social science degree designed to help students develop the skills needed to work with individuals, communities, governments and organizations to solve societal problems and improve quality of life in communities.

October 10, 2017

Penn State has announced the creation of a new center designed to bring together the University’s many strengths in all aspects of national, homeland and global security. The new Center for Security Research and Education (CSRE) incorporates 10 Penn State colleges, schools and research units to focus a broad range of academic endeavor on society’s most critical threats.