URBANA, Ill. – Harrison Hall spends a lot of time staring at fungus. A senior in Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois, Hall has worked for two years in a research lab studying the fungus responsible for a devastating wheat disease. For the former IT professional, it’s perhaps an odd passion, but it came naturally after Hall entered the PRECS program through Parkland College and U of I.

URBANA, Ill. – Inder Majumdar, a graduate student in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois, has been named a 2023 Farm Foundation Agricultural Scholar. This annual program is sponsored in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS).

URBANA, Ill. – This fall, 27 students joined the Jonathan Baldwin Turner (JBT) Scholars program in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). JBT Scholars is a competitive scholarship program open to undergraduate students in all ACES majors.

This week’s 5 Questions Friday features Emma Kuhns, agricultural and consumer economics major with public policy and law concentration. Emma hails from Mason, a small town near Effingham. She is one of this year’s recipients of the prestigious Jonathan Baldwin Turner Scholarship in the College of ACES, and she shares her thoughts about the JBT program.

URBANA, Ill. – Renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels are gaining traction, but are sometimes met with local resistance because they take up valuable space that could otherwise be used for agricultural production. Agrivoltaics provides a way of creating dual land usage, combining solar panels with crops or grazing animals in the same field. But this emerging technology faces regulatory headwind because the land will no longer be classified as agricultural.

URBANA, Ill. – From zebrafish to chickens to boars, students on the University of Illinois animal welfare judging team learn to evaluate living conditions for a wide range of animal species. That gives them a unique opportunity to put their skills to practice while networking and having fun.

Team members Tawni Williams and Zoey Witruk both received top placements at the 2021 Animal Welfare Judging and Assessment Contest (AWJAC).