Ten years ago, the Georgia Peanut Tour welcomed its first visitor from the southern African nation of Malawi, where peanuts are part of the local cuisine but are only grown in small gardens or bought in informal markets. Over the next decade, visitors from Malawi attended the tour every year, traveling halfway around the world to see how farmers, shellers, researchers and others work together to get a large crop of peanuts to consumers every year.

Bill Flatt earned his first dollar from plowing a mule and picking cotton in the Tennessee heat. His grandmother made sure he set aside some of his earnings for the church and saved the rest for college. That discipline he established early in his life stuck. By his 80th birthday, Flatt had given over $1 million to the University of Georgia, creating seven endowed funds and two professorships in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

School lunches have come a long way from square pizza and fish sticks, and students across the board are benefiting from improved nutritional standards in the cafeteria. A new study from the University of Georgia found that children from all walks of life improved their diet quality when they ate school-prepared lunches following the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act nutritional guidelines instead of home-prepared lunches.

The University of Georgia Griffin campus recently named Kenny Corley and Daniel Nordstrom the 2024 Classified Employees of the Year. The designation was made at the 35th annual Employee Recognition Ceremony held April 3. The Employee of the Year award is presented to classified personnel who have made a significant impact on programs at UGA-Griffin through superior job knowledge and performance, work attitude, initiative, dependability and time management.

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension depends on thousands of volunteers who give generously to extend program impact and reach in support Extension missions. During Volunteer Appreciation Week April 21-28, UGA Extension celebrates the many volunteers who donate their time to facilitate 4-H, Master Gardener and Family and Consumer Sciences programming. Volunteers across Extension contributed over 324,200 hours in 2023, the equivalent of more than 155 full-time employees.

As another academic year draws to a close, the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is gearing up for its Athens campus convocation ceremony, which will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 9, at The Classic Center in Athens. “Each year, it’s an honor to celebrate the success of our CAES graduates,” said CAES Dean and Director Nick T. Place. “It’s amazing what these students accomplish during their time with us, and I’m always excited to commemorate this next step in their lives as they continue on to either further studies or the start of their careers.”

The field of medicine is ever-changing, and the use of herbal medicines may play a bigger role in health care as the value of natural remedies gain recognition in the Western world. Students at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences are delving into the field of medicinal remedies through the class “Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants.” Offered to undergraduate students through the Department of Horticulture, the class helps students develop a deeper understanding of the connection between nature and health.

During the pandemic, labor problems became acute on many farms in Georgia and across the country. Farms once staffed by humans to bring produce from the field to stores for purchase were suddenly short-staffed, and the global supply chain was severely impacted. Working with UGA’s Vidalia Onion and Vegetable Research Center and A&M Farms in Lyons, Georgia, a team of researchers led by School of Computing Professor Prashant Doshi is designing collaborative robots to mitigate some of these potential challenges.

An innovator in peanut breeding whose research revitalized an industry and an ardent champion of agricultural education were inducted into the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame at the 68th University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Alumni Association Awards in Athens. The 2024 honorees are William D. Branch, Georgia Seed Development Professor in Peanut Breeding and Genetics in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, and Elzie Argene Claxton, an agriculture educator and 1980 CAES agricultural education graduate.