Researchers Across the U.S. to Host Webinar about COVID-19 Disruptions to Food Supply Chains

Jan 15, 2021

By Anissa Zagonel

A multi-region, multi-institution research and outreach team investigating the impact of COVID-19 on food and agricultural systems will host a free webinar those engaged in the food supply chain at any level at 2 p.m. EST January 28, 2021.

Participants interested in the webinar can register at https://tinyurl.com/lessonsfromcovid-webinar.

This hour-long webinar is part of the Lessons from COVID-19: Positioning Regional Food Supply Chains for Future Pandemics, Natural Disasters and Human-made Crises project. The first webinar will be led by Hikaru Peterson, professor of agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota. Cheryl Boyer, Kansas State University; Gustavo Oliveira, Li Zhan, University of California-Irvine; Lauri Baker, Christa Court, Angie Lindsey, University of Florida; and Michelle Miller, Andrew Stevens, Linsey Day Farnsworth, University of Wisconsin-Madison all serve as collaborators on the project and webinar.

The webinar will include a brief introduction of team members, a holistic project overview, survey tools used and example questions from the first survey, preliminary data from an environmental scan of available resources and insights from prior assessments of the impacts of COVID-19 on the Florida food system.

Because this project is in its early phases, webinar participants will also learn how they, along with their stakeholders, can participate in the research through upcoming questionnaires. This webinar will be the first of four within this grant project.

Source : ufl.edu

Video: New research chair appointed to accelerate crop variety development

Funded by Sask Wheat, the Wheat Pre-Breeding Chair position was established to enhance cereal research breeding and training activities in the USask Crop Development Centre (CDC) by accelerating variety development through applied genomics and pre-breeding strategies.

“As the research chair, Dr. Valentyna Klymiuk will design and deploy leading-edge strategies and technologies to assess genetic diversity for delivery into new crop varieties that will benefit Saskatchewan producers and the agricultural industry,” said Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn (PhD), dean of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at USask. “We are grateful to Sask Wheat for investing in USask research as we work to develop the innovative products that strengthen global food security.”

With a primary focus on wheat, Klymiuk’s research will connect discovery research, gene bank exploration, genomics, and breeding to translate gene discovery into improved varieties for Saskatchewan’s growing conditions.