Food for Thought 2 - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Food for Thought 2Addressing the world’s food insecurity

through research and extension

F I N D I N G S O L U T I O N S T O T H E W O R L D ’ S M O S T C R I T I C A L C H A L L E N G E S

Hundreds of millions of persons around the globe suffer from food insecurity—that is, they are uncertain of having, or are unable to get, enough food for their families due to insufficient money or other resources. Hunger is not the

only consequence. Food insecurity is associated with numerous health, nutrition, education, and social issues for people of all ages. And although the magnitude isnot as great in the United States as it is in developing countries, almost 50 millionAmericans were food insecure in 2010.

How is the College of ACES responding? The stories in Food for Thought 2,a followup to our first Food for Thought research publication in 2012, which dealtwith health and nutrition, represent some of the research projects and extension efforts that address food security along the food chain in four broad areas:• Managing natural resources for food production • Technologies for healthy livestock and greater yields • Access to food in developing countries • Access to healthy food in United States urban and rural settings

We hope you gain from these articles a sense of the seriousness of this worldwide problem and what the U of I College of ACES is doing to find solutions.

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Managing Natural Resources for Food Production4 Agricultural productivity lost to flood damage

6 Water’s critical role in food security

Technologies for Healthy Livestock and Greater Yields8 Anti-inflammatory benefits seen when plant extracts fed to sick pigs

10 Reduced energy diets mean fewer days to pregnancy for dairy cows

12 As resistance rises, entomologists urge integrated pest management

13 100 years of University of Illinois Extension

14 Genetic improvement behind increased soybean yields

Access to Food in Developing Countries16 Fertilizer in small doses yields higher returns for less money

17 Volunteers sought to train farmers in Africa

18 Soy-enriched foods in Haiti

19 Sustainable grassroots extension programs

20 $25-million federal grant to increase Africa’s food supply through soybean research

22 Brazil’s dilemma: Abundant grain, inadequate storage

24 Documenting grain loss in Brazil’s harvesting supply chain

26 Preventing postharvest loss with digital tools

28 Incentives needed to improve grain markets in India

30 Malnourished children are better fed when mothers have network of peers

Access to Healthy Food in U.S. Urban and Rural Settings32 More Americans going hungry in their golden years

34 Food insecurity undermines children’s healthy development

36 Illinois Extension crosses food deserts

37 A fruitful collaboration

38 Food bank clients struggle to afford nonfood items

40 Identifying obstacles to the growth of U.S. urban agriculture

42 4-H youth fight hunger close to home

Contents

We welcome your feedback.Please let us know what articles in this publication you found most interesting orhelpful. Send your comments to DebraLevey Larson at [email protected].

Copyright © 2014, Board of Trustees, University of Illinois

Published by the Illinois Agricultural ExperimentStation, Office of Research, under the direction of Neal Merchen, Associate Dean for Research

Coordinator: Debra Levey LarsonWriters: Melinda Anderson, Stephanie Henry,

Debra Levey Larson, Leanne Lucas, PhyllisPicklesimer

Designer: Pat MayerPhotographer and photo editor: David RiecksPhotos provided by: Teresa Barnes, ADM

Institute for the Prevention of PostharvestLoss, Joyce Seay-Knoblauch

Copy Editor: Molly Bentsen

Robert J. HauserDean

Neal R. MerchenAssociate Dean for Research

George F. CzaparAssociate Dean and

Director of Extension andOutreach

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54 C O L L E G E O F A G R I C U L T U R A L , C O N S U M E R A N D E N V I R O N M E N T A L S C I E N C E S • I L L I N O I S

Ohio River levee. Instead, water backed up andflooded forested and agricultural lands alongthe lower Cache River and north of the CacheRiver levee,” Olson said.

Olson said that the damage to the landcould have been much worse. “Land usechanges, diversion ditches and levees, loss ofwetlands and flood-holding capacity, internalchannelization of the Cache River and tributar-ies, and an ever-changing climate have alteredthe hydrology of the valley, redistributed soil

“Because the flooding occurred during thenon-growing season for corn and soybeans,the mixing of sediment into the topsoil prior toplanting resulted in little significant loss of soilproductivity, little soybean damage, and littleyield reduction on lands outside the leveesalong the Mississippi, Cache, and Ohio rivers,”Olson said.

Illinois agricultural statistics recorded 2011harvests of 4,500 fewer acres of corn and 6,500fewer acres of soybeans in Alexander County.Soybean production was 1.2 million bushels in2010 but dropped to 865,000 bushels in 2011due to flooding from both the Ohio and Missis-sippi rivers and crop and soil damage. The

floodwaters also scoured lands in some placesand deposited sand in other locations.

Olson noted that, had winter wheat beenplanted outside the levees in the fall of 2010,the wheat crop would have drowned. “Illinoisfarmers are aware of the flooding potential, es-pecially in the winter and early spring, so theydon’t plant winter wheat on unprotected bot-tomlands,” he said. “Consequently, there was nocrop loss outside the levees in April and May of2011. Local floodwater in the lower Cache RiverValley, south of the Mississippi River diversionand dike, could not flow back into the OhioRiver. It was blocked by the Cache River leveeon the south side and by the closed gate at the

The Cache River Basin, which once included614,100 acres across six southern Illinoiscounties, has changed substantially since

the ancient Ohio River was re-routed to its cur-rent location as a result of glacial meltwatersand seismic activity about 10,000 to 12,000years ago. Now the basin encompasses, in ad-dition to the slow-moving, meandering CacheRiver, fertile soils and productive farmlands,deep sand and gravel deposits, sloughs anduplands, and one of the most unique and di-verse natural habitats in Illinois and the nation.

According to a University of Illinois study,the region’s agricultural lands dodged a bulletdue to the timing of the great flood of April2011, when the Ohio River approached therecord high of 332.2 feet above sea level.

“The floodwaters eventually drained backinto the Ohio and Upper Mississippi rivers,” saidU of I researcher Ken Olson, “ultimately leavingapproximately 1,000 acres of agricultural landflooded from a backup in the middle and lowerCache River Valley, which flooded the adjacentforest-covered alluvial soils and the slightlyhigher cultivated soils.”

According to Olson, who has studied theeffects of that flood extensively, these culti-vated soils drained by the middle of June 2011and were planted to soybeans. When they re-ceded, the floodwaters left a thin silt and claydeposit on the agricultural lands and cropresidue. The coatings included significantamounts of soil organic carbon, microbes, andpathogens. After the coatings dried, tillageequipment incorporated them into the topsoillayer of the alluvial soils.

from fields and ditch banks into the river, andtransported tons of sediment during floodingevents into both the Ohio and Mississippirivers.”

As the 2011 Ohio River floodwater re-claimed its ancient floodway, Olson says, theextent of these hydrologic changes and theirsocial, economic, and environmental impactshave become more apparent. “The Great Floodof 2011 lends urgency to the reevaluation andimplementation of the Cache River Watershed

Resource Plan completed in 1995.”He cited nine resource concerns identi-

fied in the plan: erosion, open dumping, private property rights, water quality, contin-uation of government farm conservation programs, Post Creek Cutoff streambank erosion, open flow on the Cache River, dissemination of accurate and timely infor-mation throughout the watershed, and theimpacts of wildlife on farming and vice versa.

“Most of these concerns still need to be ad-dressed,” Olson said. “Since that plan was cre-ated, there have been additional compromisesand breaches that need to be repaired. As therepair and rebuilding of the valley infrastructureis undertaken, significant investment of humanand financial resources will be needed to re-duce the impacts of future catastrophic events.”

Partial funding for this research was pro-vided by the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station of the Collegeof Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa StateUniversity. Additional funding came from theNational Great Rivers Research and EducationCenter.

“Land use changes, diversion ditches and

levees, loss of wetlands and flood-holding

capacity, internal channelization of the

Cache River and tributaries, and an

ever-changing climate have altered the

hydrology of the valley, redistributed soil

from fields and ditch banks into the river,

and transported tons of sediment during

flooding events into both the Ohio and

Mississippi rivers.”

MANAGING NATURAL RESOURCES FOR FOOD PRODUCTION

Agricultural productivity lost to flood damage

Taken in May 2011, the photo shows a flooded grain terminal on the Mississippi River north of Birds Point,Missouri. The map inset depicts, among other landmarks, the ancient Ohio River Valley and the currentCache River in Illinois.

6 766

Kalita and two graduate students traveledto Lebanon to develop a water allocationmodel that would enable communities to en-hance their agricultural production, using lesswater, with a system that was environmentallysustainable.

The research site was in El Qaa, in theupper Orontes basin in northeastern Lebanon.“They get less than 300 millimeters of rain a

year, not quite 12 inches, so it’s very dry,” saidKalita. “The surface had a lot of calcium carbon-ate rock. If you saw that land here, you’d proba-bly just say, Build something on it—don’t try togrow anything. But that’s what they have towork with.”

To provide irrigation for agricultural pro-duction, farmers pumped groundwater, whichextensively depleted groundwater levels overthe past 30 years. “Because of that,” said Kalita,“they were interested in evaluating alternative

Water plays an indispensable role in achieving food security, and experts in water management

agree that effective solutions to the world’swater resource problems will require inputfrom multiple disciplines.

Prasanta Kalita, a professor in the Depart-ment of Agricultural and Biological Engineer-ing who has done extensive research in watermanagement, said that the agriculture sectorfaces some of the biggest challenges in watermanagement. According to the Food and Agri-culture Organization of the UN, agricultureworldwide uses 70 percent of all water, while inmany developing countries the figure is ashigh as 85 to 90 percent.

“Irrigation projects can have huge losses,”said Kalita. “What if we could reduce the wasteand produce the same amount of food using50 percent of the water? Developed countrieshave made significant advances in irrigationmanagement, so how can we modify the ap-propriate technology and adopt it in develop-ing countries, where most of the losses occur?”

Kalita said there are other technologiesavailable that aren’t being used. “For example,in the United States and Israel, a lot of work has been done on drip irrigation. Why don’tpeople use it? What are the hindrances? Weneed to investigate those problems.” Drip irrigation allows water to reach plant roots byslow trickling, either onto the soil surface or

directly onto the root zone, using a network ofvalves, pipes, tubing, and emitters.

Water harvesting is another techniqueconsidered to have high potential to boostrain-fed agriculture. “We need to look at the hydrological conditions in a given area and develop a system to harvest the rainwater,” said Kalita. “That can reduce flooding, erosion,and contamination of the surface water frompesticides and fertilizer runoff.”

Kalita has worked with a variety of interna-tional organizations to put his water manage-

cropping and irrigation strategies that wouldenhance their production and minimize lossesto and possibly recharge their groundwaterlevels.”

Joseph Monical, one of Kalita’s graduatestudents, made additional visits to the site to help collect soil and water samples. He documented the collection process as well aspumping and irrigation layouts for the areasthey visited.

“One challenge was limited data,” saidKalita. “The project partners we talked withwere hesitant to rely too heavily on historicaldata because of their concerns for accuracy, sothey wanted to take new measurements thatwere more viable.”

Kalita said the project was very successful.“It allowed us to develop an understanding ofthe problems of the region, the needs for watermanagement and irrigation, and the availableresources. We then had opportunities to de-velop research questions that addressed someof those problems.”

Kalita said his research in water manage-ment over time has given him an appreciationfor the bigger picture.

“Sometimes we engineers work on onearea to solve a specific problem and thinkthat’s going to solve the world’s problems.That’s totally wrong. To solve the intercon-nected problems of water management andfood security, we need everyone—engineers,educators, scientists, social scientists, econo-mists, and policy makers," he concluded. "Totruly benefit society, to put a smile on the faceof society, we need everybody to work to-gether to solve the problem of food security.”

MANAGING NATURAL RESOURCES FOR FOOD PRODUCTION

Water’s critical role in food security

Joseph Monical (left), graduate student in agricultural and biological engineering, visits a surface canal outside El Qaa, Lebanon, with colleagues.

Below, researcher Prasanta Kalita befriends a local child.

U of I researchers hope to help Lebanese producersdevelop a water allocation model that will enhanceagricultural production, using less water, with asystem that is environmentally sustainable.

ment research into practice. In the Middle EastWater and Livelihoods Initiative, sponsored bythe U.S. Agency for International Developmentand the International Center for AgriculturalResearch in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Illinois wasone of six universities working with ICARDA.Each university was encouraged to partnerwith a research team in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan,Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, or Yemen on workthat would help improve livelihoods of the resource-poor in dry areas. “To truly benefit society, to put a smile on

the face of society, we need everybody to

work together to solve the problem of food

security.”

C O L L E G E O F A G R I C U L T U R A L , C O N S U M E R A N D E N V I R O N M E N T A L S C I E N C E S • I L L I N O I S

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Porcine reproductive and respiratorysyndrome (PRRS), a viral infection of thelung, is the most expensive and inva-

sive disease for pig producers on a globalscale. Though it does not occur on every farm,it is the biggest disease problem in the pig in-dustry, said U of I animal sciences researcherJames Pettigrew.

Infection with E. coli bacteria has alsobeen a problem historically, and it continuesto cause difficulties industry-wide, Pettigrewsaid. “Either disease can sweep through afarm, so alleviating either one would substan-tially reduce production costs. Many manage-ment practices have been used in the swine

industry, but none can guarantee freedomfrom disease for pigs,” he said.

Consumer concerns about bacterial resist-ance to antibiotics have prompted the swineindustry to seek alternative methods, includingspecial feed additives, to protect the pigs’health. This interest led Pettigrew and his teamto explore the potential benefits of selectedplant extracts.

The researchers conducted two experi-ments to test the beneficial effects of addingplant extracts to pig diets to combat PRRS andE. coli infection. In both experiments, re-searchers used four diets in weanling pigs, acontrol diet and three others that included gar-

lic botanical extracted from garlic, turmericoleoresin extracted from ginger, or capsicumoleoresin from pepper. In both experiments,half of the pigs in each dietary treatmentwere challenged with either E. coli or PRRSvirus while the other half were unchallenged.

“We’ve known for a long time that plantextracts, also called essential oils or botani-cals, have certain biological actions,” said Yanhong Liu, a doctoral student who led thestudies. “For instance, they can act as antioxi-dants or antimicrobials. We wanted to testwhether we could get a benefit from feedingthose products in very low doses to pigs thatwere challenged with these specific diseases.”

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E. coli infection, a bacterial illness of thegut, is marked by diarrhea, decrease in appetiteand body weight, and in some cases a highermortality rate. The disease is especially danger-ous after weaning as pigs are adapting to newfeed and new environments, Pettigrew said.

The pigs in the study that were chal-lenged with E. coli and had been fedany of the three plant extracts had alower frequency of diarrhea than thosefed the control diet. The pigs fed plantextracts were more efficient in feed usethan the pigs fed the control diet in the E. coli–challenged group, and challenged pigsfed plant extracts had sounder gut morphol-ogy compared with the challenged pigs fed thecontrol diet.

Liu noted that even the pigs in the non-challenged group, with a low frequency of milddiarrhea, benefited from the plant extracts. “Because there is a relatively high rate of diar-rhea in post-weaning pigs as they are moved

Anti-inflammatory benefits seen when plant extracts fed to sick pigs

from the mom and started on all solid feed, theextracts could also be used to reduce its occur-rence,” she said.

Common symptoms of PRRS include fever,lethargy, breathing trouble, loss of appetite,and decreased growth performance. The dis-ease can also lead to spontaneous abortionsand higher pre-weaning mortality rates.

After feeding the pigs challenged with thePRRS virus the three diets with plant extracts,the researchers observed that those pigs weremore efficient in week 1 and week 2 than thepigs fed the control diet. The pigs continuedeating and gaining weight. This was especiallytrue with turmeric, Liu said.

Blood samples from the pigs with the PRRSvirus showed that the pigs fed plant extractsalso had a lower blood viral load and lowerconcentrations of inflammatory mediators

than pigs fed the control diet. These observa-tions also suggest that feeding plant extractscould suppress ongoing inflammation and pre-vent secondary infections.

The researchers believe the benefits re-sulted from effects on the pigs’ immune sys-tems, with the plant extracts reducing theinflammation caused by the E. coli bacteria andthe PRRS virus.

“In production animals, inflammation iscostly. Inflammation reduces feed intake, and itdiverts nutrients away from growth to the im-mune system,” Pettigrew said. “If we can bringinflammation quickly back down to normalafter a challenge, that helps in production.”

And by increasing production, food insecurity concerns are also addressed.

Although previous research has looked atusing plant extracts in pig diets, Pettigrew said,Liu’s study looking at the effects of three differ-ent extracts on two different diseases had notbeen done before. The low concentrations ofextract that still produced benefits also set the

study apart.The researchers will continue to study

the mechanisms behind the beneficial ef-fects they observed, including conduct-ing gene expression studies. “We want toknow the big picture of how these plantextracts affect the challenged and non-challenged pigs,” Liu said.

Pancosma SA of Geneva, Switzer-land, provided funding for the research.

TECHNOLOGIES FOR HEALTHY LIVESTOCK AND GREATER YIELDS

“In production animals, inflammation is

costly. Inflammation reduces feed intake,

and it diverts nutrients away from growth

to the immune system. If we can bring in-

flammation quickly back down to normal

after a challenge, that helps in production.”

Garlic is used widely in culinary seasoning, in gardensto repel rabbits, and in some cultures to ward off evil.Now researchers believe that garlic plant extractscould boost immunity.

The researchers also noticed that cows fedthe controlled-energy diet showed less varia-tion in how much they ate before and aftercalving. By contrast, the high-energy cows wereeating more than they needed before calving.

“Cows and ruminants cannot export lipidswell from the liver,” said Cardoso. “So any time alarge amount of fat is going to the liver, thatcauses a lot of problems. Glucose levels will be lower, and ketone bodies will form. Feed intake will start to drop, and the cow will startfeeling ill.”

In a follow-up study that has not yet beenpublished, the researchers tried strategies to

make the cows eat less. One was to give themjust 80 percent of what they needed; the otherwas to increase fiber so the diet would belower in energy and the cows could eat more.Results for the two strategies were similar.

This study has also prompted a furtherlook at insulin resistance in cows based on en-ergy level in the diet. Cardoso said initial find-ings show that some cows fed high-energydiets have problems that mimic Type 2 dia-betes in humans, but they do not exhibit thoseissues when fed controlled-energy diets. Likehumans, he explained, cows need appropriateinsulin levels to remove glucose from the

blood and put it into tissue in the body for metabolism.

“I saw that cows fed high-energy dietswere taking longer to get pregnant and get-ting sicker, and it can be because of insulinproblems caused by these diets,” he explained.“These animals are insulin-resistant, and con-trolled-energy diets are best for taking sugarout of the blood the fastest.”

By continuing to improve and use inputsmore efficiently in dairy cows, savings in coststo producers will help food costs stay afford-able for households around the world.

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11

“These findings are good for the dairy busi-ness,” Cardoso said. “Depending on the system ofproduction, producers would save $2 to $5 dollarsa day per cow if they could shorten the days before the cow can get pregnant again.”

Cardoso pointed out that it is commonly ac-cepted among producers that cows fed a con-trolled-energy diet may not get pregnant. But“that’s not true. If anything, they are a little betteroff,” he said.

During the study, cows also lost less in bodycondition score and had a lower disease inci-dence because they were eating more. Cardosoexplained that the shorter time to pregnancy forcows fed the controlled-energy diet is most likelybecause they eat more after calving than thecows fed the high-energy diet.

“Just after calving, cows have a negative en-ergy balance,” Cardoso said. This is because theycannot consume enough energy to compensatefor the fact that they are producing milk.

This negative energy balance, which can bemeasured by looking at metabolites in the blood,causes cows to lose weight, lowering their bodycondition score. High levels of the metabolites justbefore calving or one to two weeks after calvingare associated with metabolic disorders and cer-tain diseases, which cause cows to eat less, whichin turn affects reproductive performance.

Both groups of cows showed reduced energyconsumption around calving due to stress, butwith the high-energy diet the drop was four timeshigher (approximately 30 percent) compared withthe controlled-energy diet (only 7 percent).

Cows fed the controlled-energy diet wereable to start eating right after calving. “We wantthe cow to eat as much as possible just after calv-ing because then she’s going to be healthier,” Cardoso said.


For producers in the dairy business, everyday after calving before a cow can getpregnant again translates into dollars per

day lost or gained. Researchers at the University of Illinois in-

terested in how nutrition affects reproductiveperformance in dairy cattle have determinedthat cows fed a reduced-energy diet not onlygot pregnant again sooner, but were alsohealthier and produced the same amount ofmilk as those fed a high-energy diet.

A previous U of I study comparing cows be-fore calving fed a diet with the recommendedenergy levels to those fed a diet with reducedenergy found that the reduced-energy groupperformed better after calving.

Phil Cardoso, an animal sciences researcherintrigued by those results, wondered if dietmight also be linked to reproductive perform-ance. Using data from seven U of I experimentscompleted from 1993 to 2010, he constructed adatabase of 408 cows, with details on diet be-fore calving and physiological status. He alsolooked at days-to-next-pregnancy after calving,which had not been considered in previousstudies.

He found that, on average, cows fed a con-trolled-energy diet (80 percent of the recom-mended amount of energy or 100 percentachieved with added fiber) became pregnantabout 10 days sooner than cows fed a high-energy diet, an average period of 157 days versus 167 days.

And longer intervals cost money. “In thedairy business, we’d like the cow to calve once ayear and for the calving interval to be around 12to 13 months. To give milk, she needs to calve,so we want her pregnant as soon as possible,”Cardoso explained.


Reduced energy diets mean fewer days to pregnancy for dairy cows

Animal sciences researcher Phil Cardosoat the U of I dairy barn

decade ago because the hope was that plant-ing-time soil insecticides could eventually bereduced significantly or eliminated in manycases,” Gray said.

“Because it’s human nature to want to usesomething that works very well, growerstended to overuse the technology and not torotate crops as often or to rotate with Bt hy-brids, using that same technology over and

over again rather than following an integratedpest management approach. Not surprisingly,resistance developed,” Gray said.

“The down side to all of this is the potentialthat at some point we lose a very effectivetechnology.”

Many growers are waiting for the next newtechnology, which Gray said may not be avail-able until the end of the current decade. Mean-while, in response to the threat of western cornrootworm resistance to the Cry3Bb1 protein orcross-resistance to other Bt proteins, manygrowers are increasing their use of planting-time soil insecticides, along with continued useof Bt hybrids, which he said does not optimizethe hoped-for human health and environmen-tal benefits.

In a recently published study, Gray andother entomologists trace the development ofthe resistance and discuss critical on-farmmanagement decisions that must be madenow to delay further resistance.

The authors conclude that resistance is stilloccurring despite a U.S. Environmental Protec-tion Agency requirement that growers plant arefuge to delay or prevent its development. In-sufficient planting of the refuge and nonreces-sive inheritance of resistance may be to blame.Also, because Bt hybrids registered for cornrootworm are low-dose events, corn rootwormsurvivors can occur in every field. All of thesefactors combined help to explain the loss of efficacy of some Bt hybrids targeted at this important pest.

Gray said the first and foremost recom-mendation to growers is crop rotation—to ro-tate corn with soybean or another nonhostcrop. But because entomologists have seen asegment of resistance to both Bt hybrids andcrop rotation, Gray stressed that it is also criti-cal to adopt a more diversified rotation.

“We grow a lot of corn and soybeans, butnot as much alfalfa, oats, or other small grains.It is more profitable to grow corn and soybean,but the more diversity you can achieve, thebetter off you are from a pest managementperspective when it comes to western cornrootworm.

“There is a tremendous financial invest-ment each spring for growers to plant corn orsoybean, so many producers see the use of a Bthybrid and/or a soil insecticide as pest man-agement insurance. They want to protect theirinvestment. I understand that,” Gray said. “But itis my duty as an entomologist to make sureproducers understand that there are long-termconsequences to those approaches, which isthe development of resistance if you don’t in-tegrate or alternate those practices.”

With a growing list across the CornBelt of western corn rootworm pop-ulations confirmed or suspected of

resistance to some Bt corn hybrids, entomolo-gists are encouraging growers to move to anintegrated pest management (IPM) approachto address the issue.

“Corn production is incredibly importantto Illinois and to this country,” said Mike Gray, aU of I entomologist, “and western corn root-worm is a very significant economic insect pest of corn. You’ve got this Bt technologythat’s incredibly powerful and important, andthis economically critical insect is developingresistance to it.”

Looking toward the future food needs inthe United States and the world, addressingthese issues of resistance is critical.

Gray explained that every node of rootsdestroyed by the corn rootworm is equivalentto a 15 percent yield loss for growers. He addedthat plant-based bioassays have confirmed re-sistance in Illinois and Iowa, with suspectedcases in many other midwestern states, such asNebraska and Minnesota.

Since its introduction to the market in2003 by Monsanto, Bt corn containing theCry3Bb1 protein has been widely used bygrowers as a pest management tool. Otherproducts containing insecticidal proteins fol-lowed. “Growers and the ag community werevery receptive to this technology going back a


100 years of University of IllinoisExtension

Illinois might be known for growing cloverand cranberries rather than corn and soy-

beans had farmers a century ago refusedrecommendations from extension agents ofthe day to apply lime to the state’s highlyacidic soil. Because lime is made of calciumcarbonate, which is also an ingredient in ce-ment, farmers feared using it, believing thatit would make the soil hard. Demonstrationsat agricultural experiment stations and onfarmers’ fields across the state convincedfarmers to use lime as an additive to balancesoil pH, making it possible to produce abun-dant crops of corn, soybeans, alfalfa, andother pH-sensitive plants.

The process to produce hybrid corn wascreated by university scientists and passedon to companies to grow and market theseed to farmers. Extension played a largepart in the adoption of hybrid seed by estab-lishing demonstration plots in farmers’ fields.Planting these demonstration plots nearwell-traveled roads gave farmers the oppor-tunity to visit them to observe the differencein disease pressure and ultimately in yieldbetween open-pollinated and hybrid corn.


As resistance rises, entomologists urge integrated pest management

Entomologist Mike Gray, speaking at AgronomyDay on the U of I South Farms, encouragedproducers to implement more long-term diversifiedcorn rootworm management tactics to combatresistance development.

“The more diversity you can achieve,

the better off you are from a pest

management perspective when it

comes to western corn rootworm.”

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Soybean improvement through plantbreeding has been critical over the yearsfor the success of the crop. In a new

study that traces the genetic changes in vari-eties over the last 80 years of soybean breed-ing, researchers concluded that increases inyield gains and an increased rate of gains overthe years are largely due to the continual re-lease of greater-yielding cultivars by breeders.

“This research in some ways looks backand informs us how soybean varieties havechanged. It’s useful to document these traitsand changes,” said Brian Diers, a University ofIllinois plant breeder and researcher on thestudy. “We can show that we really have beensuccessful at increasing yield.”

But this study is also about the future ofthe soybean crop.

“The study has actually created quite a lotof interest among soybean breeders becausethey want to understand what’s happened,and when we look at physiological traits, wecan see what has been changed. This gives usclues about what traits we should focus on inbreeding for future increases based on whathas been inadvertently changed over time aswe have selected for yield,” he said.

Diers and a multi-institutional team of re-searchers evaluated historic sets of 60 maturitygroup (MG) II, 59 MG III, and 49 MG IV soybeanvarieties, released from 1923 to 2008, in fieldtrials conducted in 17 states and one Canadianprovince during 2010 and 2011.

The experiments included plant introduc-tions and public cultivars obtained from theUSDA Soybean Germplasm Collection housed

at the U of I National Soybean Research Center,as well as from varieties provided by Monsanto,Pioneer, and Syngenta.

In the process of documenting the geneticchanges, the researchers observed an increasein yield over the past 80 years that is equivalentto one-third of a bushel per acre per year.

Diers said the researchers estimated thatabout two-thirds of the yield increases in farm-ers’ fields are due to new varieties introducedby breeders, with the other third due to rea-sons such as improved agronomic practices.

“When we compare old varieties to new,the new varieties do yield much better. When

we look at the data more closely, the yield in-creases have actually accelerated starting inthe 1960s and 1970s. It’s different for each ma-turity group, but current yield increases aregreater than they were earlier,” Diers said.

This research also showed that when com-pared to old varieties, plants in the new vari-eties are shorter in height, mature later, lodgeless, and have seeds with less protein andgreater oil concentration.

“The new varieties tend to mature laterwithin these maturity groups, which is some-thing that theoretically shouldn’t happen be-cause we classify these varieties based on

when they mature. So theoretically MG II vari-eties should mature at the same time now asone back in the 1970s, but this is not the case,”Diers said. “Probably over time, people havebeen selecting varieties that are a little bit laterand later, and these changes have accumu-lated. In some ways, it’s not a bad thing, be-cause farmers are planting earlier than they didback in the 1970s, so they actually need vari-eties now that will mature later than back then.That’s not a bad thing.”

Another trait reported as having changedover time is earlier flowering time, which hasresulted in an expanded reproductive period.“We didn’t know that this reproductive periodwas expanding, and we are now askingwhether breeding for an even longer repro-ductive period could further increase yields.Other studies have looked at the interaction ofplanting date by year of release and haveshown new varieties can utilize earlier plantingdates better than old varieties,” Diers said.

With soybean being a leading source ofprotein and oil for human food, animal feed,and other products, global rates of yield willneed to increase worldwide for the crop tokeep up with future demand.

“Understanding how we’ve made thesechanges to date can help us determine howwe can further improve yields and increase therate of gain,” Diers said.

Diers plans to study ways to increase therate of genetic gains using more modernbreeding techniques.

“Most of the yield increases are the resultof breeders’ selecting better combinations of

genes that can allow plants to take sunlightand produce more seed from that sunlight. Wedon’t know what genes breeders are selectingthat are resulting in these increases—for exam-ple, we don’t know where in that pathway fromthe sunlight hitting the canopy to producingseed this occurs. But breeders, by selectingnew varieties that have more yield, are able tomake this progress without necessarily under-standing the mechanism behind it,” Diers said.

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Genetic improvement behind increased soybean yields

Brian Diers making a cross between different soybean types in the field.

“We are now asking whether breeding for

an even longer reproductive period could

further increase yields.”

Bd

adoption, with particular attention paid tomanagement practices and output on cerealplots the two previous cropping seasons.

“What was particularly encouraging fromthe data is that, when comparing the costs ofresearch, development, and promotion of mi-crodosing in Zimbabwe to the gains achievedthrough a 30 percent adoption rate and an es-timated productivity effect, the data suggestan internal rate of return on the investment inmicrodosing of over 40 percent,” Winter-Nelsonsaid. “And that’s a good motivation to continueto try to get more farmers in Zimbabwe to trymicrodosing.”

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Crop yields in the fragile semiarid areas ofZimbabwe have declined over time dueto reduced soil fertility resulting from

monocropping, lack of fertilizer, and other fac-tors. University of Illinois researchers, in collabo-ration with the International Crops ResearchInstitute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT),evaluated a precision farming technique called“microdosing,” its effect on food security, and itsability to improve yield at a low cost to farmers.

“Microdosing involves applying a small, af-fordable amount of fertilizer with the seed atplanting time or as top dressing three to fourweeks after emergence,” explained Illinois agri-cultural economist Alex Winter-Nelson. “So in-stead of spreading fertilizer over the entirefield, microdosing uses fertilizer more effi-ciently and ultimately improves productivity.Our research shows that smallholder farmers’investment in microdosing has really unlockedthe power of chemical fertilizers in some of thelow-rainfall areas of Zimbabwe.”

Training is the key to adoption of the tech-nique. “About 75 percent of households receiv-ing microdosing training used fertilizer in2011,” said Winter-Nelson. “This compares toless than 25 percent for households that didnot receive training. Another way of looking atit is that training in microdosing raised theprobability of adoption by 30 to 35 percentagepoints. Knowledge of microdosing changedpeople’s attitudes about fertilizer. Those whohad training generally disagreed with the com-mon notion that fertilizer is not worth its priceor that it burns crops.”

Winter-Nelson said that there are hurdlesto overcome, however. “Sustaining and ex-panding the benefits of microdosing technol-ogy will require efforts to ensure that private

agrodealers can stock the product and pack-age it in a manner that smallholder farmersfind useful,” he said. “This is complicated by thefinancial capacities of agrodealers and by diffi-culty in projecting fertilizer demand, whichvaries with rainfall.

“We also need to work on extending training to underserved areas and to exten-sion personnel in low-rainfall areas,” he said.“Female-headed households were significantlyless likely to adopt microdosing than others,possibly reflecting labor shortages or difficul-ties accessing fertilizer. Understanding the con-straints that female farmers face and adapting

the methods or the training to their circum-stances could also help extend adoption of thetechnique.”

The research data were collected througha structured household survey in eight districtsin semiarid areas, with additional informationabout fertilizer availability and demand gathered from interviews with local extensionservice providers, non-governmental organiza-tions, and agrodealers. Focus group discus-sions were also utilized. The household surveyasked about assets, cropping patterns, agricul-tural production, training in microdosing, extension techniques, and fertilizer use and

16

Volunteers sought to train farmers in Africa

Apartnership has been developed among Catholic Relief Services, the U of I College of ACES, and four other institutions to conduct a USAID

Farmer-to-Farmer program that connects farmers in the United States withothers in the East African nations of Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ugandafor training and technical assistance.

“Catholic Relief Services will work with grassroots organizations to identify specific farmers in their East Africa region to assess their needs,” said Rolin Oliver Ferguson, international programs coordinator in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics. “Our role will be tohelp locate knowledgeable volunteers who will travel to Africa and providetraining.”

Ferguson said that the volunteers may be individuals, growers, and producers with specific expertise; Master Gardeners; and university personnel.

The Farmer-to-Farmer program has four goals: to improve householdlivelihoods and nutrition; to help link small farmers to value chains; tostrengthen communities' resilience to shocks such as droughts; and to preserve and enhance natural resources.

Fertilizer in small doses yields higher returns for less moneyACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES


entertaining, and enlightening for all who participate.”

Owen recounted a highlight of one of thenutrition fairs—a solo performance by a Haitiangirl who had composed a song about soy andsang it on stage to express her appreciation.

NSRL coordinates soybean research, outreach, and education in the areas of production, nutrition, and international develop-ment and strives to

19

Three decades ago, Haiti imported only 19percent of its food and produced enoughrice to export. But today, 80 percent of

Haiti’s rice—and half of all its food—is im-ported. Haiti in general and the mountain vil-lages in particular have long suffered fromchronic hunger. Child malnutrition rates havebeen high for years. The United Nations WorldFood Program reports that nearly a fourth ofHaiti’s children suffer from malnutrition.

Despite having the most malnourishedchildren in the Western hemisphere and nu-merous obstacles to overcome, Haiti has seengreat progress related to soy.

The U of I National Soybean Research Laboratory (NSRL) provides nutritional supportin areas around the world that face extremechallenges of malnutrition, including Haiti, anddevelops innovative processing techniques in-volving soy. NSRL also educates people in de-veloping countries about the advantages of asoy-enriched diet and promotes the healthbenefits of eating soy.

In 2010, the Illinois Soybean Association,along with NSRL and the World Initiative forSoy in Human Health, shipped a container ofdehydrated soup mixes containing texturedsoy protein to Haiti following the devastatingearthquake in January that year.

“Since then, these organizations have col-laborated on various additional projects inHaiti,” said Bridget Owen, associate director forNSRL. “Health and nutrition fairs for school-agechildren have provided unique opportunitiesfor students, teachers, parents, and school administrators to learn about soy protein aswell as the importance of a nutritious and bal-anced diet, taught in a setting that is enjoyable,

find ways to increase yield and improve quality.NSRL has a long history of applying the valueof soy in animal nutrition, in industrial applica-tions, and for human consumption. The organi-zation seeks to connect cost-effective andhighly nutritious soy protein to the global challenge of hunger and malnutrition throughsustainable solutions in early childhood nutri-

tion, school feeding programs,economic development,

and technical assistance.

18

Soy-enriched foods in HaitiACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Sustainable grassroots extension programs

Effectively meeting the food security and economic development needs of resource-poormen and women farmers in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Central

America requires significant changes in extension systems, U of I agricultural economist PaulMcNamara believes. “New approaches need to draw on the full breadth of resources in public,private, and civil society organizations and utilize advanced information and communicationstechnologies in order to make a real difference,” he said.

McNamara is the director of Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS), a five-year initiative funded by USAID to lead strategic analysis of the activities and investmentsneeded to strengthen pluralistic extension systems in developing countries.

McNamara described three main components that form the foundation for the MEAS ex-tension efforts: • Teach—MEAS is working to disseminate user-friendly materials for training programs that

promote new strategies and modern approaches to rural extension and advisory servicedelivery.

• Learn—Good practices and lessons learned are documented through success stories, casestudies, evaluations, pilot projects, and action research.

• Apply—With assistance from selected public and private host-country organizations,MEAS is designing modern extension and advisory services programs for the analysis, design, evaluation, and reform of rural extension and advisory services.

“Our goal is to help transform and modernize these extension systems so they can play akey role in increasing farm incomes and enhancing the livelihoods of the rural poor, especiallyfarm women,” McNamara said. “A key aspect to the success of extension in developing coun-tries is to encourage strong participation and collaboration so that programs will be sustain-able and make a difference long-term.”

McNamara said that the applied research and country-level assessments MEAS has con-ducted over the past three years demonstrate the importance of sustainable extension andadvisory services for increasing the incomes of smallholder farmers and raising agriculturalproductivity.

“Examples of effective channels of service delivery exist in the public sector, through pri-vate-sector organizations including cooperatives and agricultural businesses, as well as non-governmental organizations and civil society groups,” he said. “Across these organizationalforms, farmer voice and input into program design and delivery relate directly to program effectiveness.”

NSRL is partially funded by Illinois SoybeanAssociation checkoff dollars and works with numerous partners to increase the use of soyaround the world. NSRL is also a key partner in the Soybean Innovation Lab, a recentlyfunded multimillion-dollar USAID project at the University of Illinois.

For more information, visit nsrl.illinois.edu.

Women in Haiti who participated in hands-on soy cooking workshops learned innovative ways to use soyand boost the protein level of local dishes while maintaining traditional flavors.


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In 2013, the College of ACES received a $25-million federal grant to lead a consor-tium of universities and non-governmental

organizations working to increase the food supply in Africa by improving soybean yields infive countries on the continent. The five-yeargrant, administered by the U.S. Agency for Inter-national Development (USAID), will be led by U of I agricultural economist Peter Goldsmith,who has 13 years of experience conducting research in similar latitudes in South America.

The project is part of Feed the Future(www.feedthefuture.gov), the U.S. government’sglobal hunger and food security initiative.

“The people living in the poverty band inthe lower latitudes of Africa struggle with low-productivity crops, isolation from markets, andaccess to low-cost sources of protein and oil,”said Goldsmith. “There has also been a researchvoid in soy production among developingcountries. We’ve already seen soy as an eco-nomic engine creating agroindustrial growth inLatin America. That’s the beauty of a highly pro-ductive commercial crop such as soybean. This

research will work to find answers to questionsabout soy in these protein-deficient countries,from selecting the best seeds for that area andclimate to establishing markets and environ-mental sustainability.”

The consortium, officially named the Feedthe Future Innovation Laboratory for SoybeanValue Chain Research, will provide replicable re-search to identify, adapt, and deploy soybeangermplasm; educate current and future breed-ers; define best practices for production andseed management; and identify barriers toadoption, especially for women. The project willalso build and operate the Tropical Soybean In-formation Portal, a virtual interactive commu-nity that brings together all the latest researchto support researchers, the private sector, non-

of this research that fits the legacy of the Univer-sity of Illinois. Illinois crop and animal scientistswere instrumental in developing a nutritiouscorn–soy diet for pigs and poultry.”

Goldsmith said that poultry in these sub-Saharan regions are typically not fed formalgrain and soybean meal diets; consequently thechickens have very slow growth, which in turnsprovides low returns to farmers. A second phaseof the project would focus research on poultrynutrition so that producers can raise healthierchickens and have an opportunity to scale uptheir poultry operation. For example, Goldsmithsaid, one option might be the use of small-scaleextruders working like a local grist mill, wheresmall farmers can bring their soy to have itprocessed and blended with maize and micronutrients for chicken feed.

The U of I’s National Soybean Research Laboratory has been a global leader in the use of


soy for human nutrition in developing countries.“There are already established traditions forstarchy foods such as cassava, rice, and maize, aswell as for native legumes such as cowpea andchickpea,” Goldsmith said. “People know how togrow and cook with the native legumes, but theproductivity, versatility, and quality and levels ofprotein are low compared with soy.”

U of I contributors to the USAID project include Brian Diers and Randy Nelson, breedingresearch; Craig Gundersen, Bridget Owen, andMarilyn Nash, human nutrition; Rita Mumm,breeder training and education; Jeremy Guest,environmental impacts of soybean; and Courtney Tamimie, project manager.

“This research-for-development design willprovide the research foundation that can readilybe adopted by the development community toboost soybean production and improve the nutrition and market linkages for smallholder

farmers, which in turn will raise incomes, in-crease food security, and improve householdnutrition,” said Robert Hauser, dean of the College of ACES.

Other key partners in the consortium areMississippi State University; the University of Missouri; the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture; Catholic Relief Services;Technoserve; the International Fertilizer Devel-opment Council; the University of Georgia; theUniversity of Maryland, Eastern Shore; andDelaware State University.

governmental organizations, policy makers, andthe USAID missions. The group will conduct its research in the sub-Saharan African countries ofGhana, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, andEthiopia.

Because soy must be processed, one aspect of the research that will get a special focus is soy’svalue chain—finding ways to connect growerswith processors and markets. Poor infrastructureand distance to markets plague many regions of the developing world. The USDA SoybeanGermplasm Collection at the U of I will be lever-aged to identify new high-yielding soybean varieties that are adapted to low-latitude environ-ments. Researchers will also work to develop culti-vars that are resistant to rust and bacteria pustule,can more efficiently fix nitrogen, can better toleratethe low phosphorus common in tropical soils, and can be easily processed for household as well as livestock consumption.

“There is a high demand for poultry and ani-mal feed in developing countries,” Goldsmithadded. Soybean’s primary use is as a high-qualityprotein source for livestock. “That’s another aspect

$25-million federal grant to increase Africa’s food supply through soybean researchACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

“People know how to grow and cook with

the native legumes, but the productivity,

versatility, and quality and levels of

protein are low compared with soy.”

A Ghanaian woman packages Weanimix, alocal porridge weaning product fortified withsoy protein, for resale as part of amicroenterprise program.

A chef examines soy flour provided by the U of I National Soybean Research Laboratory during atraining at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane inMaputo, Mozambique. Attendees learned how to incorporate soy products into local and traditionalMozambican foods.

22

Atropical climate that allows for farmingyear-round would seem to be atremendous economic advantage, but

for corn and soybean farmers in the Brazilianstate of Mato Grosso it also poses a problem—an abundance of grain followed by about a 10percent postharvest loss, in part due to a lackof storage.

“There is a 34 percent undercapacity ofsoybean storage, and the situation is aggra-vated by the rapidly increasing production of second-crop maize,” said agricultural economist Peter Goldsmith. “The worst situa-tion occurs in northern Mato Grosso, with asimulation of a full-maize second crop. The potential for a succession crop is great, andcurrent levels of storage are low. There is clearevidence of a shortage of storage, particularlyprivate and cooperative, as grain productionrises in the state,” he said.

Goldsmith’s research on the problem wasthe first to employ GIS software to map the coordinates of commercial, cooperative, andprivate grain storage facilities in Mato Grosso.

“To find the areas with the most and theleast congestion,” Goldsmith said, “we createdGIS coordinates for every facility, mappedthem, and then overlaid current productionwith how much there would be if farmers wereto produce and store a second corn crop on100 percent of the bean crop.”

The study focused on storage facilitieswith capacity greater than 50,000 metric tons,mapping the state’s 2,143 private, cooperative,and commercial units.

“As an example of what we found, one re-gion in the northern part of the state is undercapacity by about 6.9 million metric tons,”

get maintained properly.”Goldsmith said that tropi-

cal regions of the globe will beproducing more and more of the

world’s food, so helping farmers in de-veloping countries such as Brazil create

more efficient ways to harvest, transport, andstore their crops is a step toward ensuringenough grain to feed and fuel the world.

“This is where the available ground is lo-cated,” Goldsmith said. “It’s been difficult toknow how to farm it in the past. The low or-ganic matter and highly acidic soils that areunder significant pest pressure make it a diffi-cult area in which to produce crops, but theBrazilians have figured out how to do it and doit very well.

“They are part of the global market, at thefrontier of agricultural production systems,” hesaid. “Places like Mato Grosso are at the marginwhere the food gap can be closed. In mosttemperate regions of the world, grain produc-tivity is already high, so increasing output tomeet rising demand is more incremental. Thebig changes are happening in the low-latituderegions of South America and Africa. As a scientifically relevant university, we need to understand the tremendous changes underway in the global agribusiness scene, whichcurrently happens to be in western Brazil.

Goldsmith said. “That’s 270million bushels. If a typical grain binholds about 50,000 bushels, that’sequivalent to 5,420 grain bins. Thearea just south is another region that is5 million metric tons under capacity.”

Goldsmith said that the information will help determine the best, most convenientlocations for additional storage.

“Losses occur in three situations—whengrain is left standing in the field after a harvest;during the short haul when grain falls off of thetruck in transportation from the field to eitherstorage or commercial sale; and through loss of private storage,” he said. “Short-haul loss isfairly trivial in the United States, but it is signifi-cant in developing countries that lack infra-structure. Roads are either unpaved or are full of potholes and in very poor condition.Commercial trucks used for hauling grain are also not in the best shape, so there’s a 3 percent loss of grain that falls off the truck.”

The nature of nonstop, year-round farmingin the tropics contributes to the loss. “Farmershave to harvest soybeans during the rainy sea-son, because if they wait until the end of therainy season to plant corn, the corn won’t getpollinated due to the onset of the dry season,”Goldsmith said. “There are also significant is-sues of quality and direct gain and loss due toharvesting at very high moisture levels. Andthe urgency brought on by the seasonal timingmakes harvesting go very fast. Speed is impor-tant, because you’ve got to get the beans outto get the corn in. A farmer might sacrifice soy-beans to get the corn planted. And the equip-ment is in constant demand and kept far fromthe farmstead, so combines and trucks don’t

23C O L L E G E O F A G R I C U L T U R A L , C O N S U M E R A N D E N V I R O N M E N T A L S C I E N C E S • I L L I N O I S

Brazil’s dilemma: Abundant grain, inadequate storage ACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This private storage facility (right) in central MatoGrosso stores its own production and dries andstores grain for neighbors. All of the heat used fordrying comes from burning timber. The need for soybean drying is great because harvest increasinglyoccurs during the rainy season, when moisture levelsin the grain can exceed 20 percent.

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“We’re hoping to see some patterns thathelp us provide practical guidelines for han-dling and transportation that improve efficien-cies and are conducive to the Brazilian system,”said Danao. “For example, it would be good ifwe could advise how much time a farmer hasto get high-moisture soybeans to a storage fa-cility for cleaning and drying that ensures mini-mum quality losses. We can also identify areasbetween the farm and storage facility wherefarmers can make an investment or change inpractice to handle the grain more efficiently.”

Danao said the team hopes to expand thework in transportation and to address storagesystems in the next couple of years. The teamdevelops measurement protocols and tech-nologies that are applicable to other regions ofthe world where agronomic practices, climate,and challenges are similar. “As the global de-mand for food increases,” she concluded, “it’simperative that we find efficient and safe waysto harvest, transport, and store our grains.”

The research is funded by the ArcherDaniels Midland Institute for the Prevention ofPostharvest Loss, and Danao is administeringthe grant.


Documenting grain losses at differentstages of the supply chain provides animportant baseline for measuring im-

provements of grain quality. Researchers in theDepartment of Agricultural and Biological En-gineering (ABE) are collaborating with threeuniversities in Brazil to measure and documentpostharvest losses of soybeans and corn.

Mary-Grace Danao, assistant professor inABE, Richard Gates, professor in ABE, and Marvin Paulsen, professor emeritus in ABE, areinvestigators for the project. The Brazilian part-ners include Rodrigo Zandonadi and SolenirRuffato from the Federal University of MatoGrosso, Daniel Marçal de Queiroz and FranciscoPinto from the Federal University of Viçosa, andDarly Sena from the Federal University ofGoiás.

Their efforts include determining the extent and cost of harvest losses for farmers inthe major soybean- and corn-growing states,studying the logistics of handling and trans-porting the grain, measuring transportationconditions as grains move from farm to stor-age, assessing fan efficiencies in large concretegraneleiros, and testing and developing bestmanagement practices using hermetic storagebags for grain storage.

The team’s most recent effort has beenstudying handling and transportation losses.Chris Wilhelmi, an ABE graduate student, hasfocused on developing a system to monitorGPS coordinates, time, temperature, relativehumidity, and carbon dioxide buildup in grain in trucks during transport. With the helpof Jonnas De Marchi, an undergraduate stu-dent in agricultural engineering at Federal University of Mato Grosso, Wilhelmi installed

several monitoring probes in 23 trucks duringthe soybean harvest in Sinop, Mato Grosso.

“We monitored 44 trips from farm to stor-age made by these trucks,” said Danao. “We alsocollected soybean samples at the time of load-ing at the farm and at the time of unloading atthe storage facility. All soybean samples wereanalyzed according to a Brazilian grain classifi-cation system. We are currently analyzing ourmeasurements to see if certain handling prac-tices and transportation conditions are relatedto—or, more importantly, causing—qualitychanges in the beans as they move from onepoint of the supply chain to the next.”

Preliminary analyses of the data showedsoybean harvest moisture between 11 and 26percent. For the 10 farms the team visited, dis-tances to the storage facility ranged from 5 to125 km, with an average of 39 km (24 miles).Most of the roads traveled were unpaved. Thetransportation duration from loading to un-loading ranged from 30 minutes to 27 hours.Duration was not related to distance, as it in-cluded the time trucks waited at the farm tofinish loading, or the total time spent by fullyloaded trucks sitting idle at the farm or at thestorage facility waiting to unload the beans.

Documenting grain loss in Brazil’s harvesting supply chainACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Researchers Richard Gates and Mary-Grace Danao, with graduate student Chris Wilhelmi working in the lab behind them.

Chris Wilhelmi (top), a graduate student in agricul-tural and biological engineering, works with atrucker in Mato Grosso, Brazil, to adjust one of themonitoring probes installed in a grain truck.

tools for direct implementation in problemsolving. Rodriguez said ConSEnT tools havebeen used successfully in areas such as con-trolled environment crop production and bio-mass feedstock production for bioenergy.

“We are at the beginning stages of thisproject. Our task is to look at each of thosesteps with some level of detail, so we can helpidentify new solutions that would reduce theamount of grain lost. We’re starting in India be-cause we see their system as a more complexproblem. The farms are smaller and morespread out, and the number of handlers alongthe supply chain is large, from harvest to stor-age to transportation.”

Rodriguez said one of the initial challengesis to develop a network of people who will

help researchers understand the local systemand validate the data they collect. “Our projectis primarily about good models and analyses,but we can’t spend all our time at the com-puter, working with the mathematics. We needpeople who can validate our perspective onthe ground truth in these systems. ProfessorShastri in Mumbai will help us as we reach out,not just to other academics but to governmen-tal and nongovernmental agencies as well.

“We’ll be doing similar work in Brazil,” Rodriguez continued. “In a couple of years, ifwe’ve established those networks, we’ll be ableto use systems analysis to find some key lever-age points where we might improve the sys-tem in the short term, then turn that backaround into new research projects where ei-

ther new technology or new practices will bedeveloped.”

Rodriguez said he also hopes to leveragethe current investment from the ADM instituteto generate funds from agencies and organiza-tions such as NSF, USDA, USAID, or even theGates or Rockefeller Foundation. “That wouldgive us the opportunity to expand our effortsbeyond India and Brazil.

“Postharvest loss boils down to food secu-rity,” he concluded. “Populations are increasingaround the world, and every single person deserves to be fed in a fair, affordable, and reliable manner. Food security is one of thebiggest challenges out there, and we shouldbe a part of meeting it.”

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Biological engineer Luis Rodriguez is oneof several researchers working to reducepostharvest loss through modeling and

decision analysis support systems. Rodriguez isalso a faculty member of the Archer DanielsMidland (ADM) Institute for the Prevention ofPostharvest Loss, which is funding his project.

Postharvest loss is a measurable reductionin product quantity or quality during any of thevarious phases of the postharvest system. Suchloss is a significant problem, particularly in de-veloping countries, because it inhibits the effi-ciency of delivering sufficient quantities of safefoods to ever-increasing populations.

Rodriguez is working with YanfengOuyang, an associate professor in the U of I De-partment of Civil and Environmental Engineer-

ing, and Yogendra Shastri, formerly a visitingresearch assistant professor with the U of I Energy Biosciences Institute and currently anassistant professor in the Indian Institute ofTechnology in Mumbai.

“Worldwide, we’ve seen numbers as highas 30 percent of grain being lost before it getsto the consumer,” said Rodriguez. “That pro-vides us with a huge opportunity. If we cancapture even 10 percent of that grain, thinkhow many mouths we can feed.

“Our immediate objective is to lay thefoundation for educators, practitioners, andpolicy makers to address postharvest loss incountries such as India and Brazil. Our work will develop the platform and modeling framework for using Concurrent Science,

Engineering, and Technology [ConSEnT] toolsto prevent postharvest losses.” The ConSEnTtools are being facilitated through the Cyber-GIS Center for Advanced Digital and SpatialStudies at Illinois.

The ConSEnT approach will deploy threekey strategies. First, a permanent informaticsplatform will be developed and made availableto investigators, providing a common databasefoundation for research in holistic systems.

Second, holistic modeling and analysis willbe performed to leverage the data in the infor-matics database. Models will be modular andflexible in their design to facilitate their appli-cation to a wide array of systems and scenarios.

Finally, given successful models and analy-ses, decision support will provide analytical


Preventing postharvest loss with digital toolsACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

(Far left) Jute bags used forgrain storage.

Researchers hope traditionallocal harvesting systems incountries such as India andBrazil can be improved withthe use of digital tools.

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Even after India’s agricultural reforms of2002–03, grain markets are still prettysticky for the country’s wheat, rice, and

pearl millet farmers. Two U of I agriculturaleconomists analyzed the infrastructure of interstate trade for food-grain crops in three Indian states and found that grain farmers areunable to cash in on India’s market reforms andtake advantage of a price difference betweentwo or more markets.

“We wanted to see if there was more inte-gration in the markets since the 2002 reforms,”said Kathy Baylis. “We were surprised at how little we saw. Apparently there are still manyregulations in place. A lot of the wholesale

markets are only open right around harvest.There is a strong incentive to sell at harvest be-cause otherwise you’d have to travel to Delhi oranother major city.

“The ADM Institute for the Prevention ofPostharvest Loss, which provided the fundingfor this research, is interested in storage. Whatwe found in India is a huge disincentive to in-vest in on-farm storage, because even if farm-ers could store their grain for six months or so,they wouldn’t be able to sell it then.”

Baylis explained that prior to the reformsof the early 2000s, it was difficult in India totransport grain across state lines. The reforms

made that easier and also expanded the num-ber of people who could purchase and tradegrain. Farmers used to have to go through along, arduous process to become certified. Thereforms eliminated some of those issues, butother problems still plague the system.

“Some people may think of this as only anengineering problem,” Baylis said, “where wejust need to develop a really good place forfarmers to store grain. But if there isn’t an in-centive to store grain—to sell later for a betterprice—the extra storage won’t help farm in-come.”

According to Baylis and her colleagueMindy Mallory, although India still needs someserious policy reform, small innovations couldbe facilitated to encourage more independenttraders to get into the market.

not very efficient. The other is unregulated andin some cases works well; in other cases, it isalso a mess. For vegetable crops, if farmersdon’t have those linkages, they really can’t sellperishable products. There’s a massive lack ofcold storage in India, for example.”

As an economist, Baylis said, she studieshow policy can create headaches, whether forfarmers or on the consumer end of the supplychain.

“Global food security is often seen as a pro-duction issue, but often it’s not just lack ofwater or access to the right seeds,” she said.“There has been evidence that major famineswere due not to a lack of food production butto other institutional or economic crises.

“Some people on the outside look at thepostharvest loss in India and say we need todevelop a better mousetrap—better storage.Our point is that if you don’t have the right pol-icy and economic incentives, even the bestmousetrap still won’t help.”


Incentives needed to improve grain markets in IndiaACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

“Anecdotally we heard that in placeswhere there were more active traders,farmers were able to benefit from this mar-ket arbitrage potential,” Baylis said. “Theyweren’t stuck looking at their own localmarket. If they worked with a trader, theycould keep an eye on what’s happening inthe city and sell their grain two or threemonths after harvest.”

Baylis said that fruit and vegetablecrops, which are highly perishable, tend tohave less regulation than grains andoilseeds. Because they don’t go throughthe government markets, traders are mak-ing investments to get the food from thefarmer to the city.

“Parallel systems are going on,” Baylissaid. “One is regulated, very structured, and“What we found in India is a huge disin-

centive to invest in on-farm storage,

because even if farmers could store their

grain for six months or so, they wouldn’t

be able to sell it then.”

Agricultural economist Kathy Baylis

women realized they have their own identity,they can work if they want to, and they can in-fluence household and community decisions.”

Baylis said that local men sometimes resistthe program and prevent their wives fromparticipating. As a result, initially only a fewwomen may participate, but as others see the benefits, they muster up the courage toparticipate despite family opposition.

“In this area of India, domestic violence is a huge problem,” Baylis said. “In a couple of thevillages, we heard of support groups where

women would go knock on doors and threatento expose men if they didn’t stop the violentbehavior.”

Baylis explained that the program is runthrough a branch of the Indian central govern-ment. A worker talks to people in the villagesto get a sense for where people might be receptive and what their interests are—for example, if they’d like nutritional education orparticular job skills.

“It’s a very powerful program, but it is alsovery difficult to analyze, because it looks

slightly different in each location. But the ideais the same—to bring together women in thevillage with some training and set up a supportgroup,” Baylis said.

This study is one of the first to study howpeer networks affect female bargaining powerand child welfare and one of the first evalua-tions of the Mahila Samakhya program since itbegan in 1995. The findings were shared withthose who run the program to help them seewhat’s working and what could be expanded.

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Women in rural India who did voca-tional training learned more thanjust life skills. A recent U of I study

found that mothers who participated in a program designed to educate and empowerwomen gained a network of peers that led to greater bargaining strength in the homeand significantly increased their children’s consumption of rice and dairy.

“Prior to participating in Mahila Samakhya,which loosely translates to ‘women of equalvalue,’ most attenders reported regularly com-municating with fewer than five women out-side their families,” said economist Kathy Baylis.

“Some of the women initially said thingslike, ‘I never knew anybody like me could workoutside of the home’ and ‘I never knew anyonelike me could stand up to her husband.’ Butafter participating in the program, even if theydidn’t go out and use the vocational training injobs, they felt that they had a little more rightto say, ‘No, I think this is how we should bespending our money in our household.’Women were exerting more of a say overhousehold resources.”

In India, over 40 percent of children underthe age of five suffer from malnutrition. This isdespite the fact that per capita income hasmore than doubled since the mid-1990s andagricultural production is at an all-time high,with large buffer stocks of cereals sitting ingovernment granaries.

“There’s evidence that if women havemore bargaining power in the household,”Baylis said, “particularly in developing countrieswhere cash is very tight, quite often more re-sources go toward the kids. So, to test that hy-pothesis, we went into homes with bowls andasked, How many bowls of rice this size didyour kids eat yesterday?

“Not only do we see evidence that morefood is going to kids after the training, butmore is going to girls in particular, which isgood because they tend to be the least power-ful persons in the household. When times aretight, the girls’ food is usually what’s cut back.”

In the study, 487 women were surveyedfrom six of 13 districts in Uttarakhand, fourwith the program and two without. Baylis saidthat the study shows that women who are

more empowered, educated, and mobile canactually change village culture.

“Participants told us that before joining theprogram they couldn’t work, had little contactoutside the family, and had little say in the re-sources allocated to their children,” Baylis said.“Their identity was always subsumed in theirhusband’s, brother’s, father’s, or in-laws’ iden-tity. But after participating in Mahila Samakhya,


Malnourished children are better fed when mothers have network of peersACCESS TO FOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

“More [food] is going to girls in particular,

which is good because they tend to be the

least powerful persons in the household.

When times are tight, the girls’ food is

usually what’s cut back.”

One discovery surprising to Gundersen isthat about half of poor households in theUnited States are food secure, despite havinglow incomes. “One reason is perhaps that,along with other factors, they may just be bet-ter financial managers,” he said. And althoughit may appear to come naturally to some peo-ple to be responsible financially, there is evi-dence that financial management skills can betaught. “Using coupons, shopping at large-scale supermarkets, and buying in bulk cansave households money on food,” he said.

Gundersen said that the SNAP-Ed programprovides some education in financial manage-ment. “About 70 percent of SNAP householdshave at least one person who is working, butfor them, it may be hard to find the time totake classes.”

Food pantries and other programs offeringemergency food assistance play an importantrole in the effort to alleviate food insecurity.

“A lot of SNAP recipients are from poorhouseholds who just run out of money orSNAP benefits at the end of the month,” Gundersen said. “Food pantries can tide people over until the next month. And about a third of food-insecure households have highenough incomes that they are ineligible for any of the other food assistance programs. The only place they can go for help is to foodpantries, so it’s really important that we havethose available.”

Food insecurity climbed rapidly in 2007–08 and has now evened out at a high level,Gundersen said. “Even though we’re on theother side of the great recession, we haven’tseen declines in food insecurity.”

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It may come as a surprisethat in a country as wealthyas the United States, one in

12 seniors does not have access to ade-quate food due to lack of money or other fi-nancial resources. These seniors are foodinsecure. Recent research at the University ofIllinois using data from the National Health andNutrition Examination Survey revealed thatseniors who are dealing with hunger also facenegative health and nutrition consequences.

“In 2011, 8.35 percent of Americans over age 60 faced the threat of hunger—that translates to 4.8 million people,” said Craig Gundersen, Soybean Industry EndowedProfessor in Agricultural Strategy and executivedirector of the National Soybean Research Laboratory, who led the data analysis.

Hand in hand with hunger goes a lower in-take of calories, vitamins, and other nutrients,which puts people at risk for a wide variety ofailments.

“Compared with adults their age who are food secure, seniors who are food insecurereported more diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks, gum disease, and a host of other health problems,”Gundersen said. “In addition, food-insecureseniors have worse general health outcomes,more limitations in daily activity, and a higherlikelihood of depression.

While other studies have examined thehealth consequences of food insecurity amongseniors, they didn’t use nationally representa-tive data sets. This research provides the mostcomplete portrait of health and food insecurityamong older Americans.

Because of the extensive data, the studywas able to compare seniors over the age of 60

to those ages 50 to 59. This afforded the re-searchers a snapshot of what that slightlyyounger group had to look forward to as theyentered their “golden” years. Those in their 50salready mirrored statistics for nutrients andhealth similar to their older counterparts.

Family structure also played a role in seniors’ food security. “Food insecurity rateswere almost three times as high among seniors if grandchildren were present in thehome,” Gundersen said. “And such seniors with grandchildren in the house had lower nutrient intakes than those without grandchildren. We think this may be because adults in households with grandchildren are foregoinghealthy diets in order to make sure their grandchildren have enough to eat.”

Gundersen recommends that policy mak-ers and program administrators pursue effortsto increase participation in the SupplementalNutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (for-merly known as the Food Stamp Program),with a particular emphasis on older adults.

“SNAP is a great social safety net, and withsome additional improvements it could be evenmore successful at reducing the number offood-insecure households,” Gundersen said. “We already know that SNAP leads to reductionsin food insecurity and poverty, and there is noevidence that it leads to increases in obesity. Weneed to make it easier for people to apply forthe program, to recertify once they’re in it, andto increase benefits, especially for those at thelower end of the benefits structure.”


ACCESS TO HEALTHY FOOD IN U.S. URBAN AND RURAL SETTINGS

More Americans going hungry in their golden years

Craig Gundersen is a member of the technical advisory group for Feeding America and the lead researcher onthe organization's Map the Meal Gap project.

12 seniors doquate foff od due to

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In 2012, approximately 15 percent of theU.S. population had limited or uncertain ac-cess to adequate food, and the conse-

quences to children’s healthy development canbe enormous, said Barbara H. Fiese, PamperedChef Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency.

Children in food-insecure households are at increased risk for problems in multiplearenas. Physical problems can include low birthweight, birth defects, compromised immunity,and anemia. Academic problems may show up as lower standardized test scores, smallerincreases in math and reading scores in kinder-garten through grade 3, and grade retention.Psychosocial difficulties can include moresymptoms of anxiety and depression and moreaggressive behavior in school, Fiese said.

Why so many complications? “When grow-ing children don’t receive the proper nutrientsat the right time, there are potential conse-quences for brain development. Children mayalso experience the onset of chronic healthproblems at a young age, setting them on apath toward poor health early in life,” sheadded.

Hungry children are frequently unable topay attention in school, and that inattention isoften perceived as a behavior problem. In fact,food-insecure children may develop learningproblems as a result of a lack of proper nutri-tion, Fiese said.

Food insecurity affects children in differentways at different ages. “In the first three yearsof life, poor nutrition can put children at risk fordevelopmental delays. Between three andeight years of age, food insecurity is associatedwith a poorer physical quality of life. In the teenyears, food-insecure students are more likely tobe suspended from school, and they may havedifficulty getting along with others.”

Nearly half of low-income female-headedhouseholds with children are food insecure,Fiese said. And mothers in these homes aremore likely to be depressed, making them lesssensitive and more emotionally unavailableand inconsistent as parents. The unpredictabil-ity of food availability makes for more erraticdaily environments, she added.

Fiese stressed the importance of fullyfunding the Supplemental Nutrition AssistanceProgram (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nu-trition Program for Women, Infants, and Chil-dren (WIC), the National School LunchProgram, and the Child and Adult Care FoodProgram (CACFP), which provides subsidies tochild-care providers in low-income settings.

Private food assistance programs, such asfood pantries, soup kitchens, and weekendfeeding programs, are also essential tools inmeeting the needs of hungry children, shesaid.

“The Family Resiliency Center partneredwith Eastern Illinois Foodbank and FeedingAmerica in evaluating the local BackPack Pro-gram, a weekend feeding program for childrenwho may go hungry over the weekend,” Fiese

said. “This is part of a larger effort started by aschool nurse in Arkansas who noticed that kidswere going hungry on days when they werenot in school. Now the program is adminis-tered through hundreds of food banks acrossAmerica.”

The evaluation was conducted when thelocal program had grown to 1,200 children.The researchers found that school personnelwere very good at identifying the kids mostlikely to go hungry over the weekend. Three-fourths of the families in the program werefood insecure, and more than half of thosewere very food insecure—way above the na-tional average.

“The other thing we found was that thefood in the backpacks is being used to extendfamily meals, not so much as snacks for thekids,” Fiese said. “For example, a can of ravioli islikely to be added to a pasta dish for the entirefamily. This tells us that we really need to startaddressing hunger as a family phenomenon,not just as a child need.”

No matter where you live, there are food-insecure families in your community, shenoted. “Your next-door neighbor could be hun-gry, and you wouldn’t necessarily know it.When people lose their jobs, their difficultiescan be hidden from sight.”



Food insecurity undermines children’s healthy development

Barbara Fiese (left) with a University of Illinoisstudent

fan

ingWc

Bs

When the Beginning Farmers pro-gram at the U of I St. Charles Re-search Station harvested last year’s

fruits and vegetables, they found themselveswith an overabundance of healthful and deli-cious produce after they had marketed theircrops. Not to worry—U of I Extension staff putthe food to good use in the nutrition educationprograms they are conducting for low-income,food-insecure Kane County residents.

“It was a unique opportunity to introducepeople to vegetables and fruit that came rightoff the farm—fresh-picked foods they hadn’ttried before. Many people in our classes shyaway from vegetables because they think theydon’t like them, but they were surprised at thesweetness of this produce and how good ittasted,” said Jennifer McCaffrey, an assistantdean for family and consumer sciences in the U of I Office of Extension and Outreach.

Last year, 600,000 Illinois residents participated in the Illinois Nutrition EducationProgram, funded through SNAP, the USDA’sSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.Extension markets the classes to disadvan-taged families and often partners with otheragencies and organizations, including foodpantries, to reach people in need.

“We’re very good at meeting people wherethey are, and participants appreciate beingable to taste these unfamiliar foods and learnhow to prepare them,” McCaffrey said.

In 2014, Master Gardeners in Kane Countywill plant specific fruits and vegetables that are

needed in the SNAP education program, and anew group of Beginning Farmers will experi-ence what it takes to produce and market qual-ity fruits and vegetables for commercial sale.

The USDA-funded program, “Preparing aNew Generation of Illinois Fruit and VegetableFarmers,” is headed by U of I crop sciences pro-fessor Rick Weinzierl. Beginning Farmers offersone year of classroom, hands-on, and in-fieldinstruction to agricultural producers who areinterested in diversifying to fruit or vegetableproduction. Their farming experience canrange from none to less than five years.

Classes are held three Saturdays a month,rotating among three Illinois locations—the

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Unlike the Sahara or Mojave, you won’tfind the names of these deserts on amap, but they exist all the same. In

Rock Island, Illinois, experts have identified two food deserts, areas without a major or full-service grocery store within a half-mile or a reasonable walking distance.

“A food desert is a geographic area whereaffordable and healthy food is difficult to ob-tain, particularly for people who don’t have ac-cess to transportation. Instead of majorgrocery stores with many fruit and vegetablechoices, we see a high concentration of con-venience stores that take LINC and SNAP cards[food stamps] but have few healthy foods tooffer,” said Betty Gavin, a SNAP-Ed program educator with U of I Extension.

Thanks to a USDA grant, residents of theRock Island food deserts can now travel by bus to major grocery stores, en route receivingnutrition education, recipes, sample grocery

lists, tips on stretching their food dollars, andfood samples.

“We have this captive audience on the bus,so we’re going to teach them how to makehealthier choices and get more nutrition fortheir money,” Gavin said.

In a three-hour window, food-insecure res-idents board a bus for free transportation to aretail outlet that offers more variety and lessexpensive products. Extension educators hopeto soon add grocery store “tours” in which theywill teach about nutrition labels and how tocompare unit prices, among other topics.

“We hope to get participants to try foodsthey haven’t eaten before. The goal is to givepeople with a limited budget access to a vari-ety of fruits and vegetables at a more reason-able rate than they may find in a localconvenience store,” Gavin said.

Extension staff have marketed the newservice through free newspapers and shop-



Illinois Extension crosses food deserts

ping circulars in both English and Spanish, WICoffices, churches, food pantries, and other part-ner agencies. So far the program has receivedenthusiastic support.

“On the bus ride back, when the experi-ence is fresh in the minds of our riders, we askfor their feedback so we can learn what otherinformation our shoppers are interested in andhow we can improve the program,” said KristinBogdonas, a U of I Extension nutrition and well-ness educator.

According to the educators, hunger andaccess to healthy food choices are problems inRock Island, where a high percentage of schoolstudents receive free and reduced lunches.

“This is a new program, and we’d like to seeit continue to be funded here. The informationwe gather could also be useful to other com-munities in developing their own programs,”said Gavin.

U of I campus in Urbana-Champaign, DixonSprings Agricultural Center in Simpson, and theKane County Extension office in St. Charles.Classes in Spanish are being added at sites atHarvard, Kankakee, and Cobden. USDA fundingwill allow the program to be offered to threeone-year cohorts of students.

“As a land-grant university, the U of I has athree-pronged mission: research, teaching, andextension, “ McCaffrey said. “It seems fittingthat fruits and vegetables grown by aspiringfarmers in classes at the St. Charles ResearchStation should be used by Extension’s nutritionand wellness educators in their programmingto food-insecure families.”

A fruitful collaboration

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Many food-insecure families struggleas well to afford basic nonfoodgoods such as personal care, clean-

ing, and baby-care products, according to anew University of Illinois study.

“These families often make tradeoffs withother living expenses and employ copingstrategies in an effort to secure such house-hold items as toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, ordisposable diapers. What’s more, nearly threein four low-income families have cut back onfood in the past year in order to afford theseessential nonfood items,” said Barbara H. Fiese,Pampered Chef Endowed Chair in Family Re-siliency.

Over 33 million people in the U.S. use foodpantries to supplement their basic food needs,Fiese said, with one in three low-income fami-lies experiencing difficulty in affording basichousehold items. Of these families, 82 percentlive in households with low or very low foodsecurity, meaning they cannot afford enoughfood to feed their family.

The researchers used the Red Cross disas-ter relief list to help food pantry clients identifythe personal household products they found

most essential to daily living, then asked themabout the consequences of going withoutthese products and the strategies they used tosecure them. About a third of the householdswere headed by single parents, and mosthouseholds lived on less than $800 a month,Fiese said.

“These parents really struggled to get per-sonal hygiene and household cleaning prod-ucts, sometimes even giving up prescriptionmedication to afford them. They may have re-sorted to taking toilet paper from publicplaces. Other coping strategies include water-ing down products to make them last longer,substituting one product for another, not pay-ing bills, and simply going without,” she added.

Three themes recurred in the interviews: abattle to retain personal respect, being a goodparent, and keeping the family healthy, Fiesesaid.

“Parents didn’t want their children to bethought of as dirty or unclean because theydidn’t have access to laundry detergent ortoothbrushes and toothpaste. They also fearedbeing judged for not taking care of their kidsand worried that they might be turned in forneglect.”

Fiese emphasized that being unable to attend to basic needs such as ensuring oralhealth care, providing clean clothes, and keeping a clean home creates a health risk

for children.For families with infants and tod-

dlers, adequate sources of diapers wereimportant. Although some foodpantries had diapers, participants reported that they sometimes had to

travel from pantry to pantry to get enough tomeet their needs.

Laundry detergent was another priceyitem, with many families saying that they gowithout or only do laundry occasionally. “Wecan only afford to do laundry once a month,”said one respondent.

Although participants said they might bor-row from others to make ends meet at the endof the month, they found it embarrassing, andthose feelings took a toll on them. “It gets over-whelming and stressful, and it’s degrading,”one mother said.

The results of the interviews done in thiseast-central Illinois study have been used todesign a larger, nationally representativephone survey as well as to help food banks as-sess their clients’ concerns regarding house-hold product needs.

“The interviews shed light on the oftencomplicated decisions that families have tomake in balancing the need to feed their chil-dren, purchase household supplies for healthyliving, and pay for medical expenses,” Fiesesaid. “Clearly these are not easy decisions, andthe choices can have serious consequences formultiple members of the household.”

These interviews contributed to the national study, “In Short Supply: AmericanFamilies Struggle to Secure Everyday Essen-tials,” made possible by funding from Proctor &Gamble, a long-standing partner and donor toFeeding America, the nation’s leading domes-tic hunger-relief organization.



Food bank clients struggle to afford nonfood items

“There is a strong urban heat-island effectin Chicago, so our hypothesis is that warm-season crops like tomatoes and peppers willdo really well as you get closer to downtownChicago,” Wortman said. “In the rural areas, weexpect cool-season crops will do better. Wefind that outside of the city we see the mostozone damage, the worst being at St. Charles.

This is interesting because the city is the sourceof ozone.

“This is our flagship project, and it’s beenthe most fruitful,” he added.

Lovell’s work has focused mainly on theecological and cultural functions of urban agri-culture. In Chicago, she and her team havedone extensive mapping of community and

backyard gardens and have looked at differentmethods of growing food used in the city’s various ethnic communities.

“We’re trying to bring natural and socialsciences together to gain an understanding ofthe cultural differences in how food is grownand the different types of crops produced, andconsider how all this contributes to communityfood security,” Lovell said.

Lovell is also looking at vacant land inthese communities and determining if farmingis the most appropriate use of that land.

“We need to think about how we plan anagricultural infrastructure that’s sustainableover time—one that can be knitted in to thegreen space of the city as a long-term planninggoal, not just a transient land use,” Lovell said.

Both Lovell and Wortman said lack of fund-ing sources for community gardening pro-grams and individual urban farmers is also aroadblock for the growth of urban agriculture.Without a strong industry component behindurban farming, Lovell said, funding will remaina major challenge.

“If urban agriculture is going to move to-ward being a more profitable, environmentallysound system,” Wortman said, “ecologists, hydrologists, horticulturalists, environmentalscientists, and others will need to take up thisissue. Otherwise it will continue to be just anice concept that academics like to talk about.We’ve got to get out there and get our handsdirty and figure out the real challenges andhow to solve them.”

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Urban agriculture is an emerging sectorin the local food economy, but it facessome threats. U of I researchers have

identified the main impediments to its growthand have set forth research questions that scientists must tackle to ensure its economicand environmental sustainability.

Sam Wortman, a researcher in urban foodproduction, and Sarah Taylor Lovell, a re-searcher in landscape agroecology, recentlypublished a report discussing the environmen-tal challenges in urban agriculture, such as soil contamination and remediation, alteredmicroclimates and atmospheric pollutants inurban ecosystems, and safety of urban waterresources.

Both Wortman and Lovell have focusedmuch of their research attention on Chicagoneighborhoods, which have an abundance ofboth urban gardens and vacant lots, they said.

“There is a huge opportunity for economicgrowth, but there’s no industry there yet tostep in and carry this movement. That’s our roleas a land-grant university—to help grow theurban agriculture movement through science-based research and information,” Lovell said.“That’s why the U of I in central Illinois is so interested in what’s going on in Chicago.”

Both researchers have ongoing studieslooking at some of the environmental threatsdiscussed in the review.

Soil contamination, especially by lead, maybe the most serious threat to healthy food pro-duction in the urban environment, accordingto the report. High traffic in urban areas causescontaminants to build up in the soil, andhigher lead levels are often found in soil inolder neighborhoods, where houses were builtbefore lead was removed from paint.

Because current strategies for soil remedia-tion are intensive and can be cost prohibitive,Wortman said, he is looking at alternatives toaddress the limited availability of uncontami-nated land where food can be grown as well.One project looks at growing in raised bedsand selecting appropriate compost for areaswhere soil is highly contaminated.

Other soil management projects includelooking at high-tunnel fruit and vegetable pro-duction versus open-field environments andgrowing hydroponically, as well as studyinghow to increase productivity for communitygardeners using cover crops.

“Less than 5 percent of urban farmers usecover crops. Rural farmers know their benefitsbut may not use them for economic reasons,

but many community gardeners don’t knowwhat a great way it would be for them to buildfertility and organic matter. It’s a shame thatcover crops are not used more,” Wortman said.

City-related contaminants create concernnot only regarding urban soil but also for theurban atmospheric environment.

In another study, Wortman is observingthe effects of atmospheric pollutants and al-tered microclimatic conditions on vegetablecrop physiology in Chicago neighborhoods. Sixresearch stations have been positioned along a

latitudinal transect stretching from GarfieldPark Conservatory on the east to sites fartherwest near Brookfield Zoo, Wheaton, and St. Charles.

Wortman established common soil lotsacross these six sites and is looking at how CO2,ozone, temperature, relative humidity, wind,and light intensity influence a wide range ofcrops.



Identifying obstacles to the growth of U.S. urban agriculture

“There is a strong urban heat-island effect

in Chicago, so [we predict] crops like

tomatoes and peppers will do really well

as you get closer to downtown.”

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Throughout Illinois, 4-H members are find-ing ways to fight hunger in their commu-nities. “Feeding and Growing Our

Communities,” an Illinois 4-H project coordi-nated by youth development specialist Bill Million, was funded by the Howard G. BuffettFoundation. The project challenged 4-H members to recognize the impacts of hungerand food insecurity in their communities andencouraged participation in an initiative togrow produce locally.

A number of counties accepted the chal-lenge and organized community gardens. Theygrew produce and donated it to families inneed and to other organizations serving fami-lies facing food insecurity. These 4-H groupsparticipated in hunger-fighting initiatives:• Hamilton County 4-H Gift Garden. More

than 100 youth and 30 adults provided al-most 500 hours of service and harvestedover 2,000 pounds of produce, with 450pounds being donated to the HeritageWoods and Hungry Hearts organizations.

• McLean County Olympia Pacesetters 4-HClub. Eighteen youth and four adults volun-teered 130 hours of service and harvestedover 245 pounds of produce. More than 70individuals benefited from the produce,which was donated to a local food pantry.

• Monroe County 4-H Federation Gift Garden. Forty hours of service resulted in75 pounds of produce harvested. Eighty per-cent of that produce went to senior centersand food pantries, with 35 families reached.

• Peoria County New Directions 4-H Club.Ninety youth hours and 150 adult hoursprovided 150 pounds of produce donatedto the South Side Mission, which serves ap-proximately 100 families. Another 50

pounds of produce was donated to individ-ual families.

• Kendall County Rural King 4-H Club. “Generations of families” volunteered 75hours of service and donated 600 pounds of produce to the local food pantry, whichserves 500 families.

• Sangamon County Harambee (“Let’s Pull Together” in Swahili). In the Unity of Faithgarden, 150 hours of volunteer serviceyielded more than 50 pounds of produce,which was distributed to more than 50 community members.

• Rock Island County 4-H Hunger Ambassa-dors. A core group of passionate teens organized Franklin Field, an immigrant community garden in Rock Island, as a summer project. It grew into a year-roundprogram for teens that includes youth gardening, serving meals to the hungry, assisting at food pantries, and sponsoring a meal-packaging event.

The Feeding and Growing Our Communi-ties project also gave 4-H members the oppor-tunity to work with Illini Fighting Hunger, a U of I student organization affiliated with theWesley Foundation. This not-for-profit enlists

the aid of community groups to packagemeals, which are then distributed to local foodpantries and other entities serving families inneed. 4-H youth from Boone, DeKalb, Logan,Menard, Ogle, Rock Island, Sangamon, and St.Clair counties packaged more than 63,000meals of a soy-fortified rice casserole mix.

The experience seemed to impact the 4-Hmembers as much as the people they helped.“Hunger is closer than you think,” said Million.“It becomes very real when you see the differ-ence your help makes. Some youth were sur-prised to find out there are many seniorcitizens who struggle to afford fresh produce. Itwas a real eye-opener for them to learn thatsome children may not have food available tothem on the weekends.”

Plans for year two include engaging moreyouth in learning how to grow fresh produceto supplement families in need through 4-HChallenge Grants that target youth communitygardens.

“With new funding received from EvelynBrandt Thomas through the Illinois 4-H Foun-dation, we are planning to expand our pro-gram in 2014,” said Million. “Our plans includeintroducing youth to community-supportedagriculture [CSA] ventures as they become en-gaged in programs teaching food preparation,safety, and budgeting skills and utilizing locallygrown produce from CSAs, community youthgardens, and local farmers markets.

“Our goal in 4-H is to involve youth in theircommunity and, most importantly, to leave thecommunity better off than they found it. If wecan teach youth to recognize need in theircommunity and respond to it,” he concluded,“hopefully that will create adults who will dothe same thing.”



4-H youth fight hunger close to home

Food for Thought 2 - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Transcript of Food for Thought 2 - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign