News

USDA NIFA granted $10 million towards diversifying Midwest farms to support agricultural resilience. CEOS researcher Benjamin Gramig is on the team of researchers led by Purdue University. The core goal of this project, #DiverseCornBelt: Resilient Intensification through Diversity in Midwestern Agriculture, is to diversify the farms, landscapes, and markets of the Corn Belt. Diversifying crop production and markets will generate a suite of economic, social, and ecosystem services that benefit more people than provided by the current system of predominantly corn-soybean rotations and confined livestock. Diversifying both farming and farmers in the U.S. requires systematic analysis and assessment of pathways towards resilient intensification at farm, landscape, and market levels. The team will implement a transdisciplinary integrated approach to coproduce new scientifically and ethically sound visions through objectives that cuts across research, Extension, and education.

Urbana, Ill. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced funding for a new project led by iSEE Interim Director Madhu Khanna to optimize design for “agrivoltaic” systems — fields with both crops and solar panels — that will maintain crop production, produce renewable energy, and increase farm profitability.

This $10 million, four-year project, funded through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Sustainable Agriculture Systems program with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the lead institution, will study agrivoltaics in a variety of land types and climate scenarios (Illinois, Colorado, Arizona).

“For centuries, humans have used the benefits of the sun to produce food and energy — and only in recent decades has humanity turned to harvesting solar for renewable energy,” said Khanna, the ACES Distinguished Professor of Agricultural & Consumer Economics at Illinois. “But to produce solar energy at the utility scale is land intensive, and cropland is often the most suitable for this purpose.”

URBANA, Ill – The world’s ecosystems quietly keep human beings alive, and we largely do not notice their impacts until they are gone. Take forests, for example, whose services are valued at $4.7 trillion each year. Trees capture and filter water running through the landscape, which maintains aquatic habitat and improves water supplies for drinking and recreation.

Deforestation has diminished ecosystem services to the detriment of many communities, but policies like payments for hydrological services (PHS) can provide funds for preservation efforts. A new study from the University of Illinois explores ways to make these programs more effective, financially sustainable, and adapted to domestic user preferences.

The study focuses on the conservation of forestland to provide hydrological services in Veracruz, one of the most intensely deforested states in Mexico. The region struggles with both water quality and water regulation issues.

URBANA, Ill. – The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Soybean Value Chain Research (Soybean Innovation Lab, “SIL”) at the University of Illinois has been awarded $5 million by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to train and empower other Feed the Future Innovation Labs to achieve sustained impact from their innovations. The new award, called “Innovation to Impact” (i2i) 2.0 utilizes an innovative instructional design curriculum and matched management system to support Innovation Lab technology managers as they seek to reduce poverty and malnutrition globally through uptake and scaling of their cutting-edge technologies. Peter Goldsmith directs SIL. Read more from the ACES News. 

URBANA, Ill. – A family’s socioeconomic status affects children’s health long into adulthood. Individuals growing up in low-income families have much higher risk of obesity and obesity-related diseases later in life. That’s especially true for permanent low-income families, a University of Illinois study shows.

“There has been a lot of research connecting parents’ socioeconomic status with children’s future outcomes. Our innovation in this study is to differentiate the importance of two components, which are permanent and transitory income. Each of these would have different policy implications,” says Yilan Xu, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at Illinois, and lead author on the study.