News

Researchers analyzed the financial and environmental costs and benefits of four biofuels crops used to produce sustainable aviation fuels in the U.S. They found that each feedstock — corn stover, energy sorghum, miscanthus or switchgrass — performed best in a specific region of the rainfed United States. Their study will help growers and policymakers select the feedstocks most suited to meeting goals like reducing production costs, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and building soil carbon stocks. 

Read more at Illinois News Bureau... 

Organic farming can support soil microorganisms that promote plant defenses and reduce insect pests. But not all organic practices are equally beneficial for soil microbes, and it’s important to understand farmer motivations in order to encourage the adoption of microbiome-supportive efforts. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Cornell University looks at how organic farmers’ beliefs about the microbiome influence their soil management practices.

Read the full release at aces.illinois.edu/news...

Farms have a promising opportunity to fight climate change using a simple but plentiful asset: soil. Soil has the capacity to store carbon in amounts that can meaningfully offset greenhouse gas emissions through retaining carbon (otherwise called carbon sequestration).

The private sector has established corporate goals for reducing contributions to climate change by offsetting emissions, with one method being carbon sequestration on agricultural lands. The incentivized, voluntary markets for agricultural soil carbon sequestration are a potential opportunity for farmers to meet these corporate goals.

Consumers across the United States worry about the effects of climate change on various parts of the food system. Though concern over issues like land availability, food shortages, and food prices is prevalent in every part of the country, the degree of the population's concern depends on where they live. Notably, concern is higher in the West and Northeast, while it is lower in the South and Midwest. 

Maria Kalaitzandonakes, Jonathan Coppess (University of Illinois) and Brenna Ellison (Purdue) review the results of the Gardner Survey on Farmdoc. 

---

When households escape poverty, how likely is it they will fall back in the future? Loki Phadera of the World Bank and Hope Michelson of the University of Illinois explain to Tim Phillips why measuring resilience can give us a new perspective on how well anti-poverty programs are working – if only we can agree how to do it.

Listen tot the VoxDevTalk episode below:

Read “Do Asset Transfers Build Household Resilience?” by Lokendra Phadera, Hope Michelson, Alex Winter-Nelson and Peter Goldsmith here.