Researchers get $2M NSF grant to develop Africa water-food-energy network

August 29, 2022

A team of Penn State researchers has received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to lead a three-institution team developing the “SustainFood Network,” which will link scientists, communities and policymakers in addressing challenges at the nexus of water, energy and food security in Africa.

After a two-year hiatus, College of Ag Sciences resumes study abroad programs

August 29, 2022

After a two-year pause due to the pandemic, students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences once again are taking advantage of study abroad opportunities. In the spring semester, students visited countries around the world, including Spain, Ireland, Germany and Kenya.

GEARE Partner, CSIR-SARI, Supports Farming Communities with Time Saving Technologies

August 19, 2022

Penn State's GEARE Initiative partner, CSIR-SARI, supports two farming communities in northern Ghana with time saving technologies for peanut production as part of the USAID Feed the Future Peanut Innovation Lab (at UGA)'s funded project, "Time Poverty Amongst Smallholder Farmers in Northern Ghana."

College of Ag Sciences planning new embedded course with travel to Antarctica

June 30, 2022

Penn State students will have the chance to explore this unique region of the world through a new embedded course, “Antarctica: Human Impacts on a Fragile Environment,” offered in the fall 2023 semester. Ag Sciences Global and the Environmental Resource Management program in the College of Agricultural Sciences are developing the course curriculum in partnership with the Center for Global Engineering Engagement.

Novel study of small fish in Icelandic waters sheds new light on adaptive change

May 5, 2022

Innovative research showing that populations of a small fish that live in both Iceland’s lakes and marine waters, respond more quickly and differently to predators after they invade new freshwater lakes, demonstrating how some animals can adapt rapidly to changes in their environments and may be able to adapt to climate change.

Penn State’s Mushroom Research Center helps spawn East African farm

April 27, 2022

As a mushroom scientist and manager at the center, John Pecchia often shares his expertise in mushroom cultivation and disease management with industry professionals, mainly in Pennsylvania, the U.S. and Canada. The request from Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture presented challenges, the most significant being travel restrictions due to COVID-19. Nonetheless, Pecchia responded to the call.

PlantVillage Team awarded $1M in Elon Musk XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition

April 26, 2022

An international team led by David Hughes, founder of Penn State’s PlantVillage project, has been named among 15 milestone winners of the latest round of the XPRIZE and Musk Foundation’s Carbon Removal Competition. The prize comes with a $1 million award funded by Elon Musk, which the PlantVillage team will use to demonstrate their capacity to draw down one billion tons of carbon per year in a sound and economically attractive way that benefits low-income farmers in Africa.

COVID-19 impact on gender, agriculture and food systems inspires new book

April 21, 2022

“Gender, Food, and COVID-19: Global Stories of Harm and Hope,” a new book co-edited by Paige Castellanos, Carolyn Sachs and Ann Tickamyer, gender scholars in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. The book details how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts gender, agriculture and food systems worldwide, told from the personal accounts of scholars, practitioners and community members.

Preventing, controlling spread of animal diseases focus of forum at Penn State

April 8, 2022

Exploring the emergence, spread and control of animal infectious diseases such as avian influenza was the focus of the inaugural Emerging Animal Infectious Disease Conference held Nov. 29-Dec.1, 2021, at Penn State. It was hosted by the College of Agricultural Sciences, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and Penn State’s Center for Security Research and Education.

Take Note: A Penn State professor who is a native of Ukraine and an assistant dean on the College of Agricultural Sciences' long history of working with Ukraine

April 4, 2022

For 30 years, Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has been working with researchers and institutions in Ukraine, which had been in the process of reforming its farmland laws. WPSU's Anne Danahy talked with Suzanna Windon, a native of Ukraine and an assistant professor who became the director of the Ukrainian Rural and Agricultural Development Program last fall and Deanna Behring, assistant dean for Ag Sciences Global.

How would a nuclear winter impact food production?

March 30, 2022

The research acknowledges what has been widely agreed upon for decades: In higher latitude countries — such as nuclear powers the U.S. and Russia — there would be no agricultural production and little food gathering possible in a nuclear winter after an all-out conflagration.

New Goddard Chair finding Pennsylvania connections to his international work

March 29, 2022

Christopher Scott’s career is as varied as the many places he has lived and worked, such as Nepal, Mexico, Argentina and India. His expertise is in water, and much like water, his work connects to many areas, including climate change, energy, policy, sustainability and agriculture.

Penn State Global announces 2021-22 awards for engagement

March 29, 2022

Penn State Global has announced the 2021-22 recipients of its annual awards that recognize the outstanding contributions of individuals and academic programs at Penn State who have helped to advance the University’s global engagement goals.

Alliance between College of Ag Sciences, University of Pretoria yields benefits

March 29, 2022

Developing solutions to address threats to plant health is the centerpiece of a partnership between Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Pretoria in South Africa. “Penn State and the University of Pretoria both are working at world-class levels, so working together is mutually beneficial for research, education and outreach."

Faculty in College of Agricultural Sciences lauded for excellence in teaching

March 29, 2022

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has recognized five faculty members for outstanding teaching in 2021. The recipients of the college’s Community of Teaching Excellence Award are Noel Habashy, assistant teaching professor of international agriculture; Siobhan Fathel, assistant teaching professor of agricultural and biological engineering; Kathleen Sexsmith, assistant professor of rural sociology; and Robert Van Saun, professor of veterinary science.

College of Ag Sciences and Ukraine partner in advancing agricultural development

March 29, 2022

For 30 years, Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has had a strong and productive working relationship with agriculture and universities in Ukraine, said Dean Rick Roush. As the invasion of Ukraine by Russia continues, said Roush, “words fail to describe our reaction to the events of the last few weeks."

College of Ag Sciences, University of Nottingham offer international exchange

March 3, 2022

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has partnered with the University of Nottingham’s School of Biosciences in the United Kingdom to offer a new international exchange program for the spring 2023 semester. This exchange program is unique because it was designed for College of Agricultural Sciences students, according to Ketja Lingenfelter, assistant director for student global engagement.

Student receives Fulbright to study honey bee health, behavior in Kenya

February 15, 2022

Darcy Gray, a graduate student in Penn State's intercollege graduate degree program in ecology, has received a Fulbright Study/Research Award to help beekeepers by examining how habitat and weather patterns drive bee migration and honey production in Kenya.

Agroforests in the tropics provide key conservation landscapes for amphibians

January 26, 2022

Although tropical forest ecosystems around the world have been modified and fragmented by agroforests planted to produce commodities such as coffee, rubber and areca palm, amphibian communities can survive in those transformed landscapes — if the agroforests are managed to support biodiversity. That’s the conclusion of a new study led by Penn State wildlife ecologists who surveyed frog populations in the Western Ghats, a mountain range that covers an area of 62,000 square miles parallel to the southwestern coast of India.

International agriculture minor helps put Penn State grad on path to vet school

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.

David Hughes makes Newsweek’s inaugural list of 'America’s Greatest Disruptors'

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.

Penn State expands WEF nexus activities through Colombian partnership

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.

College of Ag Sciences helps students offset carbon footprint when traveling

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.

Penn State Global recognized for sustainability by the Forum on Education Abroad

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.

Urbanization not always bad for food and land use diversity

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.

Penn State professor helps spearhead global plant-health conference in France

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.

Hopper-Dean family helps combat global hunger with PlantVillage matching fund

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.

At World Food Prize: Penn State educator discusses next generation of ag leaders

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.

Penn State awarded nearly $39M for global research on threats to crops

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.

Fulbright award recipient in College of Ag Sciences conducting research in Ghana

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.

Ag Sciences Global

Address

106 Agricultural Administration Building
University Park, PA 16802

Ag Sciences Global

Address

106 Agricultural Administration Building
University Park, PA 16802