DES MOINES, Iowa — The World Food Prize Foundation and the USDA have selected 29 students from across the country for the prestigious Wallace-Carver Fellowship.

This experience offers exceptional college students the opportunity to collaborate with world-renowned scientists and policymakers through paid summer fellowships at leading USDA research centers and offices across the United States.

“The Wallace-Carver Fellows program provides the opportunity for some of the most highly motivated young college students in America to have hands-on experiences working with leading research scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and to be inspired to pursue careers and future leadership positions in food and agricultural science,” said Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize.

Fellows will be stationed at USDA research centers and field offices across the country to analyze agricultural and economic policy, assist in the management of food, nutrition and rural development programs and take part in groundbreaking field and laboratory-based research.

Today, 49 million Americans are food-insecure and one in nine people on the planet go hungry each day. During his tenure as secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack and Quinn created the Wallace- Carver Fellowship to inspire the next generation of American scientific, agricultural and humanitarian leaders. Over the past six years, 185 students have gone through the program.

The Wallace-Carver Fellowship culminates in a week-long, high-level leadership symposium at the USDA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., hosted by the secretary. This year’s picks from the

Farm World region are:

•Christina Allen, Ohio State University, Placement ARS, National Animal Disease

Center in Ames, Iowa

•Mariah Cox, OSU, Placement in ARS, Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D.

•Jane Hulse, OSU, Placement in ARS, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Ill.

•Jordan Lehman, Earlham College, Placement in ARS, Aquatic Animal Health Research Unit in Auburn, Ala.

•Charlotte Lenkakitis, University of Iowa, Placement in ARS, National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames, Iowa

•Fabian Leon, University of Kentucky, Placement in ARS, National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames

•Caleb Mathias, OSU, Placement in ARS, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria

•Abigail Shew, University of Northern Iowa, Placement in Food Safety Inspection Service in Washington, D.C.

•Isabella Smith, Rochester University of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Placement in ARS, National Animal Disease Center in Ames

•Morgan Smith, Iowa State University, Placement in ARS, National Animal Disease Center in Ames

URBANA, Ill. — Recent funding in the amount of $1 million from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture and a $1 million matching grant from the 4R Research Fund will be used to provide greater understanding of the balance needed between the use of nutrients and the environment in the Corn Belt through science-based management.

The “4R” concept is to use the right fertilizer source, at the right rate, at the right time and in the right place to increase production while minimizing nutrient losses and enhancing environmental protection. Using an established protocol, eight replicated drainage studies will be conducted across the Midwest and a site in Ontario, Canada.

Two of the studies will be done by researchers from the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). “The aim of this research is to quantify the effects of fertilizer management on crop yield, nutrient use efficiency, nutrient losses in agricultural drainage water and soil health,” said Lowell Gentry, the principal investigator on the study with U of I.

“Our research group will measure crop yield and nutrient status, as well as nutrient availability in the soil to evaluate nutrient cycling under various fertilizer scenarios – for example, split applications of nitrogen versus applying it all in the spring ahead of corn planting.”

 

Gantry said the study will complement ongoing U of I research and this new money will be used for more plant, soil and tile water measurements to construct field input- output balances for all three macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium).

Researchers Laura Christianson and Cameron Pittelkow in U of I’s Department of Crop Sciences will conduct the other replicated tile drainage study.

The Foundation for Agronomic Research will manage the funds totaling $2 million from the combined sources. In addition to U of I, several other cooperating institutions will share in the use of the funding: Iowa State University, Purdue University, University of Minnesota, the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment – Agricultural Research Service, Agriculture and Agri- Food Canada and the Environmental Defense Fund.