Successful farms matter.
Farmers are the backbone of our state and communities. Their crops nourish livestock, are converted into a range of industrial products, and help feed the world. Here are some ways Illinois researchers are advancing farming.
Technology like autonomous robots can help farmers make the most out of their harvest. The Center for Digital Agriculture at Illinois is helping farmers, researchers, educators, and industries keep pace with the way technologies are transforming agriculture.
3,326
That’s the approximate number of contiguous acres of U. of I. research fields south of main campus. (There are also several more offsite research stations managed by the university.)
Q&A: Andrew Margenot, Soil Scientist and researcher at Illinois
What do you enjoy about the Champaign-Urbana area?
The accessibility to a high quality of life: resources like great schools for raising children, affordable housing, a local airport, everything being within a 10-15 min drive, and diverse regions of the US being within a day’s road trip.
Briefly describe your research.
I work to understand how soils “function” to support humans, largely focusing on agricultural productivity but also water quality. To do this, we blend methods from old-school approaches and archived (>120 year) soil collections, to cutting-edge synchrotron and microbiological methods.
What sparked your interest in this research?
Working in a garden while in college and realizing how little we think about the ground underfoot, then working in eastern Africa at the start of grad school and realizing the importance of soils for food security.
How do you hope your work impacts people?
For our landscapes: helping support soils’ continued ability to function for our food supply. For our farmers: figuring out the science behind what they tell us is happening in their fields. It’s bottom-up scientific innovation.
“University of Illinois’ ag research has been a valuable part of our farm. We rely on farmdoc as a trusted resource to make informed decisions, helping us navigate the ever-changing landscape of modern agriculture.”
Chris & Evonne Hausman, Champaign County farmers
One way to forecast how much precipitation is available for crops is to study how much water is evaporated back into the atmosphere. Illinois researchers have improved the accuracy of these measurements by creating an artificial-intelligence-assisted computer model on NCSA’s Delta supercomputer.
Did you know?
Illinois researchers have found that 25-to-34 percent of farmers meet the criteria for depression or anxiety disorder. The North Central Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Center, a 12-state, 15-partner collaborative based in Illinois Extension, offers stress management and mental health interventions to support the farming community. (Learn more below!)