"Food production must double by 2050 to feed the world's growing population." This truism has been repeated so often in recent years that it has become widely accepted among academics, policymakers and farmers, but now researchers are challenging this assertion and suggesting a new vision for the future of agriculture.
Africa and agroforestry -- defined as agriculture that incorporates the cultivation and conservation of trees -- are in Penn State professor Michael Jacobson's blood, and the combination has helped shape his career. In turn, the forest economist has played an important role in launching a tree-based biofuel initiative that has major implications for the continent and its millions of subsistence farmers.
What looks like a caterpillar chewing on a leaf or a beetle consuming fruit is likely a three-way battle that benefits most, if not all of the players involved, according to a Penn State entomologist.
A program developed by Penn State food scientists is training students in Armenia on food safety practices and procedures, with an eye toward improving the safety of the country's food supply chain — from crop production and processing to packaging, handling, marketing and consumption.
“Urban agriculture” isn’t a well-known concept, but Sara Touey plans to change that. Touey, a Community, Environment, and Development major in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences interned at the Penn State Center in Philadelphia, studying urban farming.
A new research analysis provides physicians and patients with new information to help them make difficult decisions about how to treat tumors and infections. The research identifies the factors that determine which of two possible approaches will best improve a patient's outcomes: containing a tumor or infection at tolerable levels, or aggressive treatments aimed at eliminating as much of the tumor or infection as possible.
A University-wide effort to promote the study of microbiomes at Penn State has led to the creation of a center for microbiome research, a fast-growing area of scientific inquiry. Microbiomes are the communities of microorganisms that live on or in people, plants, soil, oceans and the atmosphere.
Although Alyssa Gurkis and Hayly Hoch are both students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, they didn’t know each other when they embarked on a 10-week food-system internship last summer with Penn State Extension-Allegheny County. Now they’re close friends, roommates, and collaborators on a food-system project of their own.
A chemical that is thought to be safe and is, therefore, widely used on crops — such as almonds, wine grapes and tree fruits — to boost the performance of pesticides, makes honey bee larvae significantly more susceptible to a deadly virus, according to researchers at Penn State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The goal of eliminating malaria in countries like India could be more achievable if mosquito-control efforts take into account the relationship between mosquitoes and cattle, according to an international team of researchers.
Researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences have received a $7 million dollar grant to design a low-cost, integrated system that can identify and screen for high-yielding, deeper-rooted crops. The interdisciplinary team will combine a suite of technologies designed to identify phenotypes and genes related to desirable root traits, with the goal of enhancing the breeding of crop varieties better adapted for nitrogen and water acquisition and carbon sequestration.
Seventeen Penn State students, including 13 enrolled in the College of Agricultural Sciences, were among 28 who received scholarships from the Pennsylvania Farm Show Scholarship Foundation during the 101st Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg. The foundation awards scholarships to young people who are registered in a post-secondary educational institution and who have exhibited at the Farm Show. To be chosen, students must exhibit leadership qualities and excellent academic performance, according to the foundation.
A $3.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation will support a new research project aimed at pinpointing the genes that confer disease resistance in cacao. The ultimate goal of the four-year study is to develop a new approach that plant scientists and breeders can use to identify the genetic basis for disease resistance in a variety of perennial crops.
