Browse Stories - Page 6

As students return to campus fresh from holiday break, one building is welcoming students for the very first time. Situated on University of Georgia’s South Campus, the 70,000-plus square-foot Poultry Science Building is the new home for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Department of Poultry Science. The new building provides nearly double the space per student in each classroom, growing from roughly 17 square feet to 28 to 30 square feet per student.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences recently renewed a $4 million contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service to build upon their previous work to develop targeted interventions to mitigate the impact of silverleaf whiteflies on vegetable production in the Southeast. UGA entomologist Allen Moore leads the research team in collaboration with USDA ARS in Charleston, South Carolina.

For plant breeder Andrew Ogden, things are looking up. Way up. A new assistant professor in the University of Georgia Department of Horticulture at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Ogden focuses on breeding members of the cucurbit family — namely melons and squash — in a vertical greenhouse environment. An asset to the UGA Griffin campus, Ogden joins the college's controlled environment agriculture research team, which was formed to support the ever-expanding green industry.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and UGA Cooperative Extension are pleased to announce that registration for the 2024 Georgia Ag Forecast is now open. The annual seminar has become a staple for agribusiness and producers, offering the latest research and insights from UGA faculty to help them prepare for the upcoming year. The annual event is scheduled for Jan. 26 at the UGA Tifton Conference Center on the UGA Tifton campus, and it will also be live streamed to virtual registrants.

As the second-largest economic contributor to the Georgia economy after agriculture, hospitality and tourism workforce development is critical. The University of Georgia is addressing the need and preparing the workforce of the future through partnerships and experiential learning. The UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel, a showcase for best practices in hospitality and tourism, collaborates with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences for the bachelor’s degree program in hospitality and food industry management.

For decades, economists have studied the impact of immigration on domestic labor markets. As a shortage of domestic farm labor has led to increased participation in the H-2A visa program, a brief look back at past immigration policies helps frame why migrants from Central and South America have largely been associated with filling necessary agricultural jobs in the U.S.

Georgia’s geographic diversity — from beaches and swamps to mountains and flatlands —makes the state an attractive place to live, but each region is vulnerable to weather-related emergencies year-round. When disasters strike, navigating the milieu of steps to recover and rebuild can be difficult. With a presence in all 159 Georgia counties, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is uniquely positioned to help communities prepare for and rebound from calamity.

The face of Ag Hill is changing, with millions of dollars in capital improvements and new facilities in the works, and both the University of Georgia and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences are committed to supporting the mission and the tradition the hill represents. Now known as Science and Ag Hill to recognize the location as a hub for a variety of related disciplines on South Campus — including agricultural, poultry and food sciences as well as chemistry, biology, physics, statistics, geography and geology — the area holds both academic and historic significance.

Poultry has grown to become the top commodity in Georgia’s No. 1 industry, agriculture. Acquainting school-aged students with potential career paths in avian science is critical to staffing the state's poultry sector. Building on the foundation set by Avian Academy, the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences worked with the Georgia Department of Education to create middle- and high-school poultry science curricula.

Learning by Leading at the University of Georgia is a hands-on program developed for the botanical garden to increase leadership skills through a comprehensive experiential learning program. Students progress through a leadership ladder, gaining technical, human and conceptual skills while working alongside staff mentors at the State Botanical Garden. James Anderson of the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication led a six-series leadership training for staff mentors during the 2018-19 academic year.