A few months ago, Greta Hall traveled from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to South Dakota State University and found herself listening to a lecture about SDSU’s invention of cookies and cream ice cream.

This fall, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will welcome its 2025 freshman class, along with a distinguished cohort of new and newly promoted faculty. In 2025, the college promoted 12 faculty members and welcomed 17 new hires, strengthening its academic, research, and outreach excellence.

A new publication of policy recommendations for land use, energy, and agriculture has been released as part of the U.S.-German Forum on the Future of Agriculture, led by the Aspen Institute Germany together with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

Matthew Vann has been named the new associate dean and director of University of Illinois Extension, the flagship public engagement organization housed in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the state’s land-grant university.

A team of agricultural economists, environmental scientists and policy experts envisions a path toward a carbon-neutral agricultural future by expanding the reach of policies designed to promote low-carbon biofuels for transportation and aviation. In a new paper in the journal Science, the researchers propose policies that would reward farmers for adopting “climate-smart” practices when growing biofuel crops and remove the hurdles that currently thwart such efforts.

Yesterday, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) announced the winners of the Sale of Champions at the 2025 Illinois State Fair — the premier auction showcasing the top livestock exhibited by Illinois 4-H youth.

Tile drainage is a common practice used in agricultural fields to remove excess water, but it also transports harmful nutrients into water bodies, contributing to algal blooms that deprive aquatic life of oxygen. Woodchip bioreactors are an efficient way to reduce nitrogen pollution by treating the water as it exits the field. However, these denitrifying bioreactors may leach phosphorus from the woodchips into the environment.

With colorectal cancer on the rise in people under 50, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are looking at the colon’s tiniest inhabitants to reveal causes and potential treatments.

Small grains researcher Juan David Arbelaez-Velez knows the secret to making perfect rice — and it’s not about how you cook it. Arbelaez and his team are investigating the genetic blueprint that determines different grain attributes such as appearance, cooking time, and texture. Their paper, published in The Plant Genome, offers a strategy that will help breeders improve grain quality holistically, while cutting costs and saving time.