News Stories - Page 39

Genetic improvement, particularly improvements related to animal production, has been one of the most transformational agricultural advancements in our history. The breeding of healthier, more productive livestock has been achieved through genetic selection over the course of time, both through natural genetic selection and through increased use of artificial insemination.

Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday for food. On the fourth Thursday of November, people across the country sit down at the “good dining table” (or the broken folding table for the kids) and eat the same thing — copious amounts of turkey. Vegans and vegetarians may find this holiday to be a more difficult one. What can a person on a plant-based diet eat on Thanksgiving without missing out on the holiday fun?

A math teacher and a gym coach take long steps down to the sandy ground from the bottom stairs of two yellow school buses. It is still early March, but the air is already warm and sticky; a gentle breeze stirs the Spanish moss that droops from live oak trees above their heads. An instant later, 64 middle-school students pile out of the buses and take in their surroundings at Burton 4-H Center on Tybee Island.

More than 60 million Americans and 1.5 million Georgians live and work in rural communities and value being members of small communities, but access to health care and treatment is challenging in areas where doctors and hospitals can be far from home.

With dual roles in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and UGA Cooperative Extension, Pedro Fontes engages with stakeholders and producers, as well as his students, to teach them about beef cattle reproduction and current technological advancements in the field.

Georgia 4-H has selected Melanie Biersmith as the new state 4-H leader. Effective Nov. 1, Biersmith is the ninth state leader in the organization’s 118-year history. Biersmith most recently served as the associate state 4-H leader for facilities and residential programs for Georgia 4-H, where she managed operations and personnel at all six Georgia 4-H centers.

Thanks in part to a new partnership between the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Agrify, a company that produces vertical farming units, the controlled environment agriculture program at CAES has established two large-scale vertical farms on campus.

The Meat Dawgs, the University of Georgia’s meat judging team, won the national title at the National High Plains Intercollegiate Meat Judging Contest in Friona, Texas, on Oct. 30, cementing a successful return of the team after 10 years.

Launched last spring, the Elevate program is part of a five-year, $6.2 million grant the University of Georgia received from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2020. Using the UGA Extension network and community partners across the state, the project delivers no-cost, evidence-based couples and relationship education.