Browse Grants & Partnerships Stories

As the population of Gwinnett County approaches the 1 million mark, with a highly diverse demographic profile, the county's University of Georgia Cooperative Extension office is preparing to serve its changing constituency effectively. Recently, the Gwinnett County Extension Program received a $250,000 budget increase from the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners to increase staffing and expand community educational outreach and engagement to underrepresented groups around the county.

As students return to campus fresh from holiday break, one building is welcoming students for the very first time. Situated on University of Georgia’s South Campus, the 70,000-plus square-foot Poultry Science Building is the new home for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Department of Poultry Science. The new building provides nearly double the space per student in each classroom, growing from roughly 17 square feet to 28 to 30 square feet per student.

University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences students hailing from Hall County, Georgia, will soon be eligible for scholarship support thanks to the generosity of Gainesville natives Doug and Kay Ivester. A $200,000 endowment to fund the newly established Abit Massey/Ivester Foundation Scholarship Fund will support CAES students who either graduated from a high school located in Gainesville, Georgia, or Hall County, Georgia, or who are Hall County residents.

Seven East Coast states harvested nearly 102,000 acres of watermelon and cucumber in 2019 and 2020, representing more than 62% ($410 million) and 45% ($180 million) of the U.S. production of the two crops, respectively. Growers of cucurbits — which include melons, pumpkin, squash and cucumbers — face numerous challenges in production, leading to decreased profitability and less produce on grocery shelves.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has been selected as one of five university partners participating in a multi-year effort focused on identifying and addressing consumer questions involving the pork industry, announced the National Pork Board. The establishment of the Real Pork Trust Consortium will bring together the diverse expertise of five universities and will focus on three key areas to build consumer trust.

Dan Suiter, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension entomologist and well-known expert in addressing the needs of pest control operators, has been named the Orkin Professor of Urban Entomology at UGA. Orkin, an industry leader in pest control services and protection, has created the endowment to help strengthen the entomology program in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Kevin Vogel, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Georgia, has received a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award from the National Science Foundation. Supported by the more than $1 million CAREER grant, Vogel and his team will spend the next five years building upon the still-limited body of research regarding the symbiotic relationship between kissing bugs and a highly specified bacterium that resides in their gut.

Georgia is the nation's leading pecan-producing state — and University of Georgia researchers intend to keep it that way. Working with an international team of experts, four faculty from the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have received a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture award for the second phase of a study to adapt one of Georgia’s top commodities, the pecan.

The University of Georgia Office of Research recently announced a record-breaking fiscal year 2022 with more than a half billion dollars spent on research and development. The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences was responsible for $112.8 million of the total, up $13.8 million from fiscal year 2021 in overall money spent on research from all funding sources.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has launched a podcast, now available on all streaming services. Cultivating Curiosity will augment existing CAES news and storytelling platforms, including the CAES Newswire, where you are reading this; Almanac, the college's annual publication; and Cultivate, which highlights members of the CAES and UGA Cooperative Extension community.