OEFFA conference coming soon

Registration is open for the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association’s 42nd annual conference, Ohio’s largest such event focused on sustainable agriculture, set for Feb. 10–15 online.

The conference sponsors include three CFAES programs, and among the 60-plus scheduled speakers are 10 from CFAES and Ohio State.

Learn more and register. The deadline to register is Feb. 8.

How this company reduced its environmental footprint

February’s monthly webinar by the Environmental Professionals Network, a service of CFAES’ School of Environment and Natural Resources, is “A world of sustainable pathways, a focus on Cardinal Health,” set for 10–11:30 a.m. Feb. 9. Organizers say the event will “explore lessons learned from one leading company’s experience in calculating and reducing its global environmental footprint.”

Get complete details and register.

CFAES sustainability news, Jan. 19, 2021

No need to fear coyotes

Youngstown Vindicator, Jan. 10; research involving Stan Gehrt, School of Environment and Natural Resources, cited

Inspired by tailgaters, Ohio State students land $340,000 funding for portable ‘power as a service’ startup

Business First, Jan. 8, 2021

To the editor: Climate changes impact Ohio farmers

Toledo Blade, Jan. 4; Aaron Wilson, OSU Extension, cited

Listen to greenhouse plants even better

Drones. Automation. Artificial intelligence. They’re some of the new, cutting-edge ways to monitor greenhouse plants. They’re also among the subjects to be covered by an upcoming workshop for greenhouse growers.

With a theme of “Improving Production Via Listening to Plants,” CFAES’ 2021 Greenhouse Management Workshop takes place online from Jan. 27–29.

Continue reading

Major new effort announced to restore soil

In heavily farmed parts of Central America, South America, and across the Caribbean, “the most degraded soils have not reached the point of no return. They can still be restored.”

So says CFAES’ Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and 2020 World Food Prize laureate, who’s helping lead a new, 34-country initiative to tackle that restoration.

Why it’s important: Some 36 million people in the region don’t have enough good food to eat, and degraded soils play a role in it. Success, Lal says, will mean “we can eliminate hunger and malnutrition in the region, and we can protect the natural resources that are now being degraded.”

Read the story.

Truckload of good

Last year, Ohioans working as Master Gardener Volunteers grew nearly 80,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables—equal to the weight of a fully loaded 18-wheeler, or about 65,000 meals—which they donated to some 101 food pantries across Ohio to help people in need.

Mike Hogan, an OSU Extension educator who facilitates the Master Gardener Volunteers program in Franklin County, said the need for such donations “significantly increased this year due to the pandemic.”

Master Gardener Volunteers are plant lovers who donate their expertise and time serving the public. CFAES’ outreach arm, OSU Extension, runs the program, which gives training and has volunteers in most of the state’s counties.

Read the full story.