The U.S. has traditionally been an agricultural powerhouse with a healthy trade surplus. But global dynamics are changing due to a confluence of political and economic factors. U.S. agricultural imports now exceed exports, and the trade deficit is projected to worsen in the coming years.

The ripple effects of increased tariffs under President Trump could extend to the $117 billion U.S. beer market, according to new research from a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign agricultural economist who studies food supply chains.

This year, Champaign County 4-H’er Austin Ater celebrated his 14th birthday in an extraordinary way — by giving back. The 2025 Illinois State Fair junior grand champion poultry exhibitor donated his record-setting winning pen of chickens to help fight hunger in the community.

If you ate, filled your gas tank, took medicine, or did laundry today, you likely participated in the bioeconomy. That’s the part of the economy that taps as its source material living, growing things. With great potential to reduce waste, grow markets for farmers, and create new jobs, the bioeconomy depends on biotechnology innovations and all the processes and policies required to get those products to your local superstore, pharmacy, grocery store, gas pump, or agricultural supplier. 

Darin Joos, Crop Sciences Research Agronomist, has been named a 2025 Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award recipient.

Joos began his Illinois career in 1994 as a graduate student and went on to lead the state’s crop variety testing program, which evaluated commercial varieties of corn, wheat, and soybean at 14 sites across Illinois. After nearly three decades in that role, he now manages the Crop Sciences Research and Education Center farms in Champaign.

With a strategic location in the Indian Ocean and a tropical climate that allows for year-round cultivation of diverse crops, the island country of Sri Lanka provides valuable opportunities for University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students to learn, compare, and collaborate on topics of food and agribusiness management.

The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign announced a gift from Bayer’s Crop Science division to support the revitalization of the Morrow Plots, the oldest experimental agricultural fields in North America. Established in 1876, the plots have become a national symbol of agricultural innovation and remain a National Historic Landmark.

A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign shows, for the first time, that severe flu infection in pregnant mice leads to a breakdown in placental and brain barriers and an accumulation of potentially harmful molecules in the fetal brain. 

Illinois once harbored more than 8 million acres of wetlands. By the 1980s, all but 1.2 million wetland acres had been lost, filled in for development or drained to make way for agriculture. Now, thanks to a 2023 Supreme Court decision, roughly 72% of the remaining 981,000 acres of Illinois wetlands are no longer protected by the federal Clean Water Act, putting communities at risk of losing the flood control, groundwater recharge, water purification and natural habitat these wetlands provide, researchers report.