Whether talking to farmers in France, Ghana or southern Ohio, the message of CFAES soil scientist Rafiq Islam is consistent: Tilling the land does more long-term damage than good.
Month: April 2017
For those about to plant
CFAES’s Secrest Arboretum is holding its 24th annual Plant Discovery Day — featuring the sale and auction of 300-plus types of trees, shrubs, herbs, annuals, perennials, hanging baskets and more — on May 13 in Wooster. (Photo: Dahlia (one of the 300), iStock.)
Good pickings
Public “fruit parks” are coming to Columbus’s Weinland Park and South Side neighborhoods, and healthy eating and community bonding soon should be growing there, says an April 17 story in the Columbus Dispatch. CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, is a partner.
Top 5 moments from EPN’s events: ‘None pooped on stage, either’
Five years ago, David Hanselmann helped launch the Environmental Professionals Network, a statewide professional group based in CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.
Since then, EPN has grown to have nearly 2,000 members. It’s held 55 public monthly Breakfast Club programs, which typically draw more than 125 people, and five signature events, whose top attendance has been 1,400.
Hanselmann, who coordinates EPN as a lecturer in SENR, shares his top five moments from those events …
April 19: Who will be at the small business, climate change roundtable
The guests at tomorrow’s roundtable discussion on small business and climate change, which is from 5-8 p.m. in CFAES’s Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center on Ohio State’s campus in Columbus, will include Ohio Rep. Fred Strahorn; Michael Schadek, assistant director for intergovernmental affairs and economic development for the city of Columbus; and representatives from Ohio Rep. Anne Gonzales’s Columbus office, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s Columbus office, Java Central Cafe and Roaster, car2go Columbus, the Land-Grant Brewing Company, Ohiyo Chocolate, Portia’s Café, Fusian, and Wolf’s Ridge Brewing.
Nonpartisan group Defend Our Future is hosting the event. Details: Marguerite Dooley, marguerite@defendourfuture.org.
April 19: How climate change is affecting small businesses
The nonprofit, nonpartisan climate advocacy group Defend Our Future is hosting a roundtable discussion with Columbus-area small business owners and Columbus and Ohio elected officials on April 19 on Ohio State’s Columbus campus. It’s from 5-8 p.m. in CFAES’s Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center, 2201 Fred Taylor Drive.
A media advisory from the group said the discussion “will touch on the impact climate change is having on small businesses, their bottom lines and consumer preferences and how strong state and national environmental protections, such as those provided by the EPA, are important factors for a healthy and vibrant business community.”
Contact Marguerite Dooley, marguerite@defendourfuture.org, for details.
April 19: ‘Citizen Sense’ leader will speak
Jennifer Gabrys, reader in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and principal investigator on the European Research Council’s “Citizen Sense” project, will present “Citizen Sense: Monitoring and Contesting Environments of Extraction” from 3:30 to 5 p.m. April 19 in Room 311 Denney Hall on Ohio State’s Columbus campus. She’ll also give a workshop from 10 a.m. to noon April 20 in the Research Commons classroom on campus. Details. Ohio State’s Environmental Humanities program is the sponsor.
Lal, honored by Elsevier, is a ‘rock star in the science community’
Rattan Lal — director of CFAES’s Carbon Management and Sequestration Center and a Distinguished University Professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources — was honored with the Elsevier Atlas award on March 31 for his journal article “Food Security in a Changing Climate,” which was published in the journal Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology in April 2013. Continue reading Lal, honored by Elsevier, is a ‘rock star in the science community’
Farm bankruptcy rate has ticked up, may keep doing so
Declining farm income and farmland values will likely lead to an increase in the number of farmers who are delinquent on their loans and eventually a rise in farm bankruptcies, two CFAES agricultural economists predict …
Media advisory: OARDC Research Conference is April 20
Media members are invited to attend OARDC’s 2017 Research Conference on April 20 at Ohio State.
Three featured speakers will address a theme of “Biological Resistance: Opportunities and Challenges for Agriculture and Society.”
OARDC is CFAES’s research arm.