A Cornell program has shown that rice yields can be hugely increased through simple changes in how plants, soil, water and nutrients are managed. The program has drawn attention worldwide and is now on the short list of a $1 million sustainability prize.
Cornell's Department of Food Science has selected two commercial dairies as producing the highest quality milk in New York state. The annual selection is tied to the New York State Milk Quality Improvement Program, sponsored by the New York Milk Promotion Order.
In this shrink-wrapped, vacuum-packed, pre-cooked world, Cornell University is striving to keep a strong agricultural connection active in the minds of 21st century children. The university's Agriculture in the Classroom program has developed the New York "Kids Growing Foods" school-garden program, and this spring grants are being awarded to 34 elementary schools in the state to establish or maintain these gardens.
According to a new study by Cornell University food scientists, led by Rui Hai Liu, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of food science, shallots, Western Yellow, pungent yellow and Northern Red onions are higher in anti-cancer chemicals than other varieties tested. (Oct. 7, 2004)
In the first study to test people who eat foods that have been bred for higher-than-normal concentrations of micronutrients, nutritional sciences professor Jere Haas and colleagues found that the iron status of women who ate iron-rich rice was 20 percent higher than those who ate traditional rice. (November 29, 2005)
Cornell has been awarded a $26.8 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, a broad-based global partnership to combat stem rust, a deadly wheat disease that poses a serious threat to global food security. (April 2, 2008)
This harvest season, families across the Southern Tier have received 81 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables thanks to faculty and staff at Cornell University's Homer C. Thompson Farm in Freeville. (November 15, 2005)
To examine the forces working against tomorrow's young farmers in today's changing world and the problems of domestic food security, Cornell will be a viewing site for the 16th annual World Food Day teleconference.
Cornell University will host a symposium, "Globalization, Agricultural Development and Rural Livelihoods," April 11-12, examining globalization of markets and the status of world food supplies and of nutrition. The symposium, in 401 Warren Hall, will feature a keynote address, "Globalization, Agriculture and Rural Poverty: Implications for Developing Countries," by Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Cornell's Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy. The talk will be given in the opening session at 8:30 a.m. on April 11 (April 04, 2003)
The force of global economics is changing the agricultural landscape in New York state, the Northeast region and the United States. These changes have created uncertainties for the American agricultural economy, according to a white paper released Sept. 19 by Cornell University agricultural scientists and economists. "We are seeing more and more large farms, and there are billions of dollars in subsidies for large, commercial farms. If there were an economic shake-up in agriculture and if the big farm holdings could not sell their goods, the United States would become protectionist immediately," says Thomas Lyson, Cornell's Liberty Hyde Bailey professor of development sociology and one of the paper's authors. "I think it is very precarious." (September 24, 2003)