Making the right decision at the right time can make all the difference in farm productivity and profitability. By combining advanced analytics with practical agricultural expertise, land-grant university researchers are helping producers address challenges ranging from labor shortages and weather variability to resource efficiency and food production. This work ensures agricultural innovation responds to producers’ needs while strengthening the food …
Decades of Collaborative Research Deliver Results for Cattle and Sheep Producers
Reproductive inefficiency costs cattle and sheep producers billions of dollars each year. For cattle and sheep producers, reproductive success drives profitability. Every missed pregnancy means fewer calves or lambs to sell, reduced herd productivity, and lower returns. Across the livestock industry, those losses add up to billions of dollars each year. For more than 50 years, researchers at land-grant universities …
The Science Behind the Spud
It’s National Potato Day! Whether mashed, baked, roasted, or fried, potatoes and sweet potatoes have long been staples on American tables, supporting farmers and local agricultural economies. Across the land-grant university system, researchers and Extension professionals are helping ensure this important crop continues to thrive. Featured photo courtesy of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center. …
Fueling Economic Development for Thriving Communities: Risk Management, Transitions, and Future-focused Innovation
Across the nation, communities are navigating rapid change. From managing risk and planning farm transitions to expanding market awareness and accelerating innovation, land‑grant universities play a vital role in equipping producers, landowners, and policymakers with the knowledge they need to thrive amid uncertainty. Read on to learn how investing in land‑grant research and Extension means investing in America’s future. Featured photo courtesy …
Building Resilient Water Systems: Protecting Water Quality Across America
America’s water resources are under growing pressure, from nutrient pollution and invasive species to drought and climate-driven variability. Protecting these systems requires science-based solutions. From mapping contaminants in critical watersheds to equipping decision-makers with precision tools and empowering communities to prevent ecological threats, land-grant universities are helping safeguard water quality and ecosystem health. Together, their efforts are strengthening the resilience …
Building Resilient Food Systems: Food Safety, Nutrition, Consumer Confidence
Land-grant universities play a critical role in advancing resilient food systems that ensure communities across the nation have reliable access to safe, nutritious, and affordable food—today and in the future. From farm to fork, land-grant university research and Extension are advancing food safety and nutrition while strengthening consumer confidence through practical, science-based solutions. Featured photo courtesy of Kansas State University. …
1890 Extension Transforming Lives
From the 2023 1890 Extension Transforming Lives Report: The dynamic work of Cooperative Extension at the 1890 Land-grant Universities is changing lives and connecting people to vital information. Extension professionals have the unique responsibility of translating federal and state dollars into educational outreach that advances the well-being of their states’ diverse audiences, particularly those with limited social and economic resources. …
Controlling pests and protecting pollinators
Most agricultural systems in the Northeast rely on pesticides to ensure high yields and profits, but pesticides can pose risks to essential pollinators and environmental health. To reduce reliance on pesticides, scientists are exploring ways to harness natural plant defenses, such as emitting chemicals that slow insect feeding, inhibit infections, call beneficial insects to their aid, or warn other plants. …
Land-grant universities help communities cope with mental health, substance abuse challenges
Across the country, many communities — especially those in rural areas — are facing growing challenges related to mental health and substance abuse. Extension personnel with land-grant universities are in a unique position to help educate and encourage those they serve and have developed a variety of efforts to tackle these problems, which have economic, social and other consequences. Here …
Improving the health of livestock animals
Livestock producers are continually searching for new management strategies that will help them be both innovative and better animal stewards. Maintaining healthy animals may also protect human health. Here are a few examples of that work: A Georgia poultry scientist worked with a pharmaceutical company to redesign their Salmonella vaccine to reduce poultry deaths. The vaccine, which contains killed Salmonella, …