Global Agricultural Productivity Report enables Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to expand its global reach
The Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences — which has long been a leader in empowering people around the world to produce sustainable food while increasing productivity — will become an even larger knowledge platform when it presents the Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report® in 2019.
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Virginia Tech has record-breaking year with Fulbright student awards
Virginia Tech has its largest cohort of Fulbright U.S. Student grant recipients in university history, with five students and two alumnae participating in projects during the 2019-20 academic year. Recipients will conduct research, study, or teach abroad.
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CALS Global Opportunity Initiative fellows launch partnerships in Kenya
CALS Global launched a new partnership in 2017 with the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Agriculture and Agribusiness Management (CESAAM) at Egerton University. CESAAM is a World Bank-funded African Center of Excellence with the mission to improve food security along the agricultural value chain.
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Virginia Teh and Hebrew University of Jerusalem to collaborate on research and student exchange
Both universities are leading the charge to grow safe and nutritious food for a growing global population. Both are working to address the challenge of securing safe and healthy water for people around the world. And both are preparing a new generation of leaders to tackle these and many other issues that lay ahead.
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Virginia Tech’s simple fix for Vietnam cuts pesticide use, sends bugs packing
Farmers in Vietnam face unwelcome pests and chemical residues at harvest time, but Virginia Tech researchers are helping them to safely battle the bugs and pesticides that keep the nation from thriving in global markets.
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Virginia Tech launches Feed the Future Senegal Youth in Agriculture project
On May 22, the Center for International Research, Education, and Development (CIRED) officially launched its newest project, Feed the Future Senegal Jeunesse en Agriculture (Youth in Agriculture), at the Centre International de Conférences Abdou Diouf in Diamniadio.
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Virginia Tech professor aids Zimbabwe in poverty analysis amid decades of political strife
“Zimbabwe has so much potential. Its resource base, institutions, infrastructure, and, most importantly, its people make me optimistic about its future,” said Alwang, professor of agricultural and applied economics in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
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Virginia 4-H crowdfunds to support Brazilian youth development program
For more than a decade, Virginia 4-H has been working in Brazil to bring character education and training to educators, students, and families. The Character Counts! program has made an impact in more than 65 schools, improving student behavior, reducing violence, and increasing family involvement.
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Virginia Tech professor and 4-H youth team up to establish Community and 4-H Center in Senegal
The center was made possible through the work and financial support of many, including the Morris family, the Virginia 4-H program, the USAID Education and Research in Agriculture (ERA) project management team, and Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences professor Ozzie Abaye, whose participation was instrumental. For Abaye, her work with the Santamba community was inspired by her parents and mentors, Samuel and Eleanor Morris, for whom the center was named.
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A week in Havana transforms Virginia Tech students
While the island nation's politics may be a conundrum, Cuba is an exceptionally resilient nation and a full-sensory experience. Just ask Kim Niewolny, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who led a study abroad experience during spring break to explore food security and technology, land rights and distribution, gender and racial equity, and community mobilization for a just food system.
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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar Announces International Bioeconomy Research Agreement to Support Rural and Farming Communities
Washington D.C., 14th March 2018 – An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar TD, today announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Irish-based BEACON SFI Research Centre for Bioeconomy and the US-based HARVEST (Helping Agriculture Remain Vital through Engineering, Science and Technology). HARVEST is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Research Coordination Network (RCN) based out of Virginia Tech.
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Killer weed in East Africa no match for Virginia's land-grant institutions
With help from the Virginia Tech-led Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management, researchers from Virginia Tech and Virginia State University are working to eradicate parthenium hysterophorus, an aggressively invasive plant native to Central America now found on Australian, Asian, and African continents.
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Virginia Tech supports efforts to preserve Mongoloan nomadic traditions
David Notter and Shayan Ghajar are familiar with the country’s history, but now, after spending time in Mongolia they are more intimately acquainted with its rangelands and nomadic inhabitants. The Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences faculty members and Virginia Cooperative Extension experts are also well-versed in animal husbandry and the grazing needs of livestock, which is why they were nominated by the college’s Global Programs Office to visit Mongolia for the Farmer-to-Farmer Program.
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Shifting temperatures to alter household electricity expenses, researchers find
“Climate change is one of the biggest issues facing our planet today and we need to examine how it can impact household expenses,” said study co-investigator Klaus Moeltner, a professor of agricultural and applied economics in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “This is especially important when looking at European homes where heating and cooling systems comprise a significant portion of electricity usage.”
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Students trek deep into the Amazon and scale the Andes to learn about global food security
A group of students from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences spent two weeks in Ecuador to better understand food security and production challenges and to learn how agriculture can be used as a means to help the world.
Virginia Tech researchers use insects to help reduce hunger in Africa
Economists from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics recently partnered with entomologists from Virginia Tech and Niger in a study analyzing the profitability of using insects to curb millet-yield losses caused by the millet head miner pest. They estimate that multiplying and distributing the beneficial insect Habrobracon Hebetor could increase the nation's food security by recovering as much as 41 percent of total millet-yield losses.
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Ozzie Abaye receives Alimni Award for Exellence in International Outreach
Ozzie Abaye, professor of crop and soil environmental sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a Virginia Cooperative Extension specialist, received the university’s 2017 Alumni Award for Excellence in International Outreach.
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Students team with Ecuadorean tribes to learn most-effective plants for treating infection
Ten Virginia Tech undergraduate students held onto their hats this summer as they plunged down Amazonian river systems into the heart of Ecuador. At the helm of their canoes were Global Change Center researchers Ignacio Moore and Bill Hopkins. Moore organized the trip as part of the Tropical Biology and Conservation in Ecuador course.
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Virginia Tech awards more than $11 million to help feed people in developing countries
Because conventional agriculture cannot feed the world's billions, the Feed the Future Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab at Virginia Tech has awarded more than $11.5 million to eight projects that will help farmers in seven countries.
