Chris Ayers emerged from his orange and black rough-terrain vehicle with an ear-to-ear grin. “This is Chiktopia,” he said, sweeping his arm wide to indicate the back half of a 3,600-square-foot warehouse on his family’s farm in Ball Ground, Georgia. “This is where I manufacture and assemble the chicken coops. Everything is done entirely from over here.”

Every October, top leaders in food security and agriculture come together for the Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue, the premier conference on global agriculture. Attendees participate in sessions covering the current state of agriculture around the world, new technologies being deployed in the field, and projects in the works to ensure a safe and sustainable global food supply.

Researchers in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences are studying how pastured and free-range chickens impact ecosystems on integrated crop-livestock farms. Supported by a $749,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, entomology doctoral student Sofia Varriano and her thesis advisor, agroecologist and systems biology Professor Bill Snyder, are testing the promise of integrated crop-livestock agriculture to increase the sustainability of smaller farms.

On a Monday morning in late June, just over two dozen middle- and high-school teachers trickled into a classroom at the University of Georgia Poultry Research Center and took their seats in groups of two and three. Hailing from public schools around the state, the teachers were preparing for Avian Academy, a highly popular three-day program for agriculture and STEM teachers hosted annually.

An 11-year-old girl changed everything for Anna Blount. Blount enrolled in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2001 with plans to go on to veterinary school. She loved animals and worked at a veterinary clinic while she earned her degree in biological science. But, as a college student, Blount also became a de facto parent.

Cage free. The term seems self-explanatory enough. Step inside a cage-free poultry house, and the reality is not far detached from the perception. A soft bed of wood shavings or sand litters the ground. Step carefully, as it’s likely you’ll find an egg or two scattered randomly underfoot. And there are chickens everywhere, freely roaming like a crowd at a flea market. Cage-free poultry systems—indoor aviaries that house colonies of up to thousands of birds—offer an improved level of animal welfare for egg-laying hens.