Canadian adults with food insecurity are 10% to 37% more likely to die prematurely from any cause other than cancer compared to food-secure people, according to new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).  Craig Gundersen, distinguished professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois, is a co-author on the study. Read more.

URBANA, Ill. – Affirmative action policies (AAP) such as quota systems based on racial or socio-economic criteria are often recommended as a way to increase enrollment of underrepresented students in higher education. But those policies can be controversial and their results are sometimes questioned.

URBANA, Ill. – School test scores often show gaps in performance between white and non-white students. Understanding the complex reasons behind this can help reduce those gaps and promote social equality, explains Mary Paula Arends-Kuenning, associate professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois.

Arends-Kuenning is co-author of a study that analyzes math test scores for 9^th-grade students in Brazil and breaks down the characteristics associated with performance gaps between different racial groups.

URBANA, Ill. – An international research team has received a $1.4 million grant from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council to investigate food availability and food security among indigenous mothers and children in remote Australian communities.

URBANA, Ill. – The U.S. Midwest produces at least a third of the world’s corn and soybean supply each year. Feeding the world requires a lot of fertilizer, mostly in the form of nitrogen and phosphorus. While nitrogen can literally be pulled out of the air, phosphorus has to be mined from finite phosphate rock reserves and treated to be made available to plants. Most of the world’s phosphate rock is in Morocco, and at some point these reserves will run out.

URBANA, Ill. – Speakers from University of Illinois Extension and the farmdoc team from the U of I Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics will explore topics such as the 2020 outlook for crop and livestock prices, the next farm bill, farm profitability and management topics, and the impacts of trade and policy issues at the 2019 Illinois Farm Economics Summit in December.

The ongoing trade war with China, combined with one of the wettest spring planting seasons on record, made 2019 a challenging year for Illinois agriculture.

URBANA, Ill. – The United States is the world’s leading producer of soybean and the second-leading exporter. Nearly 90% of oilseed production in the U.S. comes from soybean. A biological threat to soybean crops in America could affect the global economy, and the result could be devastating to the American soybean farmer, according to researchers in the USAID Soybean Innovation Laboratory (SIL), housed in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois.

URBANA, Ill. – The Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) recently launched Africa’s first free, open-access, certificate-based online course in integrated pest management (IPM) and pesticide safety.

Insect pests, weeds, and diseases are common problems for farmers worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa, pest control is typically manual, which is labor-intensive and often ineffective.

A revolution in Midwestern agriculture has to happen to minimize the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic zone, according to the University of Illinois Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).

It is a little-known fact that corn — a Midwestern staple crop — has a bearing on the Gulf of Mexico’s health. The link is nitrogen, a common agricultural fertilizer component. According to a team of Illinois researchers, each annual harvest removes just 60-70% of nitrogen from fields.

URBANA, Ill. – Food insecurity is linked to higher disease rates but not much is known about the reasons for this. A new study of more than 10,000 Canadian households shows that this connection may be at least partially attributed to lack of access to prescription medication.