What We Are Doing:
Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century

Every day brings new challenges. . .
· Improving both animal and human health
· Finding new ways to feed the world
· Ensuring food safety
· Finding new forms of renewable energy
· Protecting the environment
· Conserving our supply of clean water
· Seeing the world
· Making a difference

· Improving both animal and human health

--Relaxin and Reproductive Health
Could a hormone that’s present in a nursing sow’s first milk be important to the long-term reproductive-tract health of her female offspring?

--AU Poultry Research Focuses on Ovarian Cancer Prevention
An Auburn University poultry scientist's research into the reproductive processes of egg-laying hens could hold keys to the early detection and perhaps eventually the prevention of ovarian cancer—the most fatal of all gynecological malignancies—in humans.

· Finding new ways to feed the world

--AU Center Helping Develop Uganda's Aquaculture Industry
The Auburn University College of Agriculture’s International Center for Aquaculture and Aquatic Environments is helping fish farmers in Uganda expand their markets, enhance their profits and feed their people through a $2.5 million U.S. Agency for International Development grant.

--College of Ag Fighting War on Hunger
The United Nations World Food Programme, one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies, selected Auburn University in 2004 to establish the worldwide model as a student-led program to increase awareness of global hunger and poverty. The College of Agriculture’s Subcommittee of 19 is helping with that effort campus-wide.

· Ensuring food safety at home and overseas

--Making Raw Oysters Safe for the Masses
A new oyster-purification system that an AU research team led by AAES fisheries microbiologist Cova Arias has developed is still in the testing stages, but it could prove highly effective in ensuring that raw Gulf oysters are safe to eat.

--AU’s Wang Helps Ensure Food Safety for Olympics
When more than 10,500 athletes and 22,000-plus international journalists converge on Beijing, China, this August for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, an Auburn University biosystems engineering assistant professor will have played a pivotal role in helping ensure that the foods they are served are safe.

· Finding new forms of renewable energy

--Switchgrass in the Limelight
Ever since President George W. Bush zeroed in on switchgrass in his 2006 State of the Union address as one possible new source of ethanol to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, interest in growing and using switchgrass as a source of biofuel has blossomed.

--Poultry Litter Pellets Fuel Furnaces
Every year, Alabama's poultry industry produces 1 million-plus broilers, 2 billion-plus eggs—and 6 million-plus tons of poultry litter. But now AAES scientists have identified a way to put that litter to use.

· Protecting the environment

--Making Satsumas Safer the Environmentally Friendly Way
A pest-management research project launched in 2004 and aimed at reducing the use of toxic chemicals in Alabama's emerging Satsuma industry already has some producers significantly cutting their pesticide applications.

--Adding Milo's to the Nursery Mix
In an average week, Milo’s Tea Company churns out 350,000 gallons of its famous brew. That’s a whole lot of tea—and a whole lot of used tea leaves. About 15 tons of tea grounds a week, in fact. Could those spent tea grounds somehow be put to use, perhaps in the nursery industry?

--Seeking to Save Soil on Slopes
When it comes to controlling erosion on slopes created or left bare by construction, you can’t beat a good stand of grass. But as contractors will tell you, getting that grass established can be a challenge.

· Conserving our supply of clean water

--Water, Water Everywhere...But How Do We Put It to Use?
That's the question that is being answered through a multi-year $877,000 grant recently awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to five Alabama colleges or universities, including Auburn.

--Saving Water in the Process(ing)
Nine billion gallons of water. Based on national averages, that’s how much Alabama’s poultry processing companies are estimated to use every year as they go about the business of processing broilers into products for human consumption. Making sure that water is used wisely and safely is the goal of an AU research project.

· Seeing the world

--Holland Hort Tour Dubbed "Incredible"
Sometimes, an experience is so awesome, you just can't find the words to do it justice. That's how AU horticulture senior Matt Wilson feels about the Henry P. Orr Endowment 2006 horticultural study tour to Holland.

--Going Global with Research
AU College of Ag faculty who travel and work overseas truly broaden their horizons. That "world view" is invaluable for their research, teaching and outreach efforts.

· Making a difference

--Energy Co-op Sets Up Scholarship Endowment
An organization that generates the juice that keeps lights burning brightly in 380,000 homes and businesses in south and central Alabama and northwest Florida has established an endowment that will provide scholarships to students majoring in agriculture at Auburn University.

--McElrath Makes Major Commitment to College of Agriculture
For Wayne McElrath, there's no question of which came first. It was the egg.

--Historic Herdsmans' House Gets A Makeover
Something old—the circa 1929 Herdsman’s House—has become new again, through the efforts and support of a variety of College of Ag friends and staff members.