Campuses:
Below is a compilation of recent news coverage of CFANS faculty and staff. The views expressed in the media-prepared reports do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of CFANS or the University of Minnesota.
A $12.3 million surprise gift from a South Dakota farmer and businesswoman is the largest to the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, U officials announced Thursday..
Star Tribune
MPR
KARE 11
CBS Minnesota
Pioneer Press
The University of Minnesota says Allen S. Levine is stepping down at the end of August as dean of its College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. Allen S. Levine will return to the faculty and assume new academic responsibilities. An interim dean will be named soon, and a nationwide search to fill the permanent position will be launched later this summer.
Pioneer Press
Minnesota Public Radio
WDAY (Fargo)
KTTC Rochester
KEYC Mankato
U of M economics professor Tom Stinson steps down as the state economist and will be replaced by U of M economics professor Laura Kalambokidis.
Star Tribune
Pioneer Press
MinnPost
MPR
Fox 9 News
KSTP TV
Politics in Minnesota
Twin Cities Business
Time is running out for Minnesota farmers whose spring planting has been delayed by rain and chill. Some 1.2 million acres of corn has yet to be seeded in Minnesota, a full month after farmers hoped it would be in the ground. Nearly half the state's soybean acres haven't yet been planted, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Monday. "That's not a very good situation for either," said Seth Naeve, a soybean specialist at the University of Minnesota.
Pioneer Press
Starting June 14, University of Minnesota professor Jason Hill will begin teaching an eight-week course on sustainable food systems to a big "class" — 17,000 students located in dozens of countries.
MinnPost
The Waters Corp. program has honored the Flavor Research and Education Center at the University of Minnesota for its innovative research into food and flavor chemistry.
Food Production Daily
Monsanto claimed Wednesday that the Oregon field found last week to be contaminated with Monsanto's unapproved GM wheat was an "isolated" incident, and that it was likely either the result of an accident or "sabotage." However, scientists warned Thursday that the biotech giant's denial has many holes.... However, David Andow, a professor of entomology at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview with Bloomberg that these claims are misleading and that the tests cited by Monsanto this week, which displayed clean wheat in the state of Washington, are shortsighted.
Bloomberg News
Common Dreams
Elaine Evans, bee scholar and doctoral candidate in entomology at the University of Minnesota, comments on the plight of the honey bee.
Star Tribune
While bees, historically, have not foraged on these crops for food, the widespread presence of single crops means fewer dining options for the bees — and that could be leading to weakened immune systems. “We have been systematically eliminating flowers that bees require for nutrition and survival,” explained Marla Spivak, a University of Minnesota entomologist and one of the country’s most prominent bee researchers. “We started using lots of insecticides, necessary because monoculture put out feasts for crop pests. Insecticides are designed to kill insects, which depending on the dose can also kill bees.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
East Central Minnesota Press
Minnesota Public Radio
EAB could arrive in Rochester immediately or in 20 years, depending on what preventative steps are taken and if infested firewood isn't accidentally brought into the area, says Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Forest Ecology.
Rochester Post Bulletin
If you've ever wanted to see Jupiter from your backyard, you're in luck. That is, as long as the weather cooperates. "With the cloudy skies, yeah, I just stayed in," explained Sally Brummel, the planetarium education and outreach coordinator at the Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis. So far, she's missed her chance to to see what's called "the dance of the planets," when Mercury, Venus and Jupiter are aligned and visible without any fancy equipment.
KSTP
No one knows if new dairy policy being debated in the Senate and House this week and next will actually work as intended. "We won’t know unless and until we try it," says Marin Bozic, a dairy economist with the University Minnesota.
Dairy Today
Birdcam enthusiasts have one more site to bookmark now that the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen is offering an "Osprey Cam." The University of Minnesota arboretum says the webcam monitors an osprey couple nesting atop a pole on Horticultural Research Center land near Tamarack Lake in the Victoria area.
Pioneer Press
Farmers want sperm from American cows to help breed high milk-producing offspring....The increases in productivity are not without side-effects or concerns. “In retrospect, we’ve done some really stupid things” says Les Hanson, a cattle genomics researcher in the department of Animal Science at the University of Minnesota.
Quartz
A review of the evolution of dairy futures and options contracts reveals intense innovation and a continual search for better contract designs that provide more effective risk protection... Marin Bozic is an assistant professor in dairy foods marketing economics at the University of Minnesota.
Hoard's Dairyman
A recent report from Thomas R. Hoverstad, a scientist at the University of Minnesota Ag Research Center in Waseca states that "with May bringing 23 of 31 days with precipitation and so far 4 of 5 days in June have been wet, it means that very little has been accomplished in the areas that still need to be planted."
Minnesota Public Radio
Star Tribune
My MPR colleague Mark Seeley from the University of Minnesota gave us some astounding benchmarks on just how rapidly Minnesota's climate is shifting, and how extreme weather in Minnesota is becoming the new normal.
Minnesota Public Radio
As the debate intensifies in Washington, D.C., dairy economist Marin Bozic of the University of Minnesota urged South Dakota dairy producers to be cool-headed when making a decision about participating in the dairy program.
Tri-State Neighbor
