From the farmer in the field to genomics
UGA's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences combines world-class instruction and research with time-honored outreach to the state's $60 billion farm production industry

B Y - D O U G - M O N R O E - (A B J - '6 9)

Dean Buchanan wears business suits befitting the leader of a $170 million educational, research, and outreach organization. But he also has a deep and abiding interest in the welfare of family farms—including his own family's farm in Florida. Thus, it's not surprising that he drives a pickup truck to work.

he joke going around barns on the outskirts of Athens is that "Hole-stein" cows are the ones with the holes in their sides as part of a nutritional study. It's the sort of thing city folk believe.

"I thought that's why they were called that . . . I had absolutely no idea," says Rodney Nash, an Atlanta kid who decided to pursue a Ph.D. in animal and dairy science even though he had never set foot on a farm. The first farm animal he ever saw in person was, believe it or not, a cloned pig.

Nash now knows the difference between Holsteins and Jerseys, as well as a lot of other animal- and dairy-related things, as he works on his doctorate at UGA's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. With a background in molecular genetics and biochemistry, Nash wants to help defeat Parkinson's disease through stem cell research.

By no means is Nash the only CAES student who was once a stranger to the farm. The first time Jackie Hoffman saw the poultry science building on South Campus, she said, "There's a whole building for chickens?" But after working with elephants at the Rochester (N.Y.) zoo, she decided to become a researcher in reproductive physiology. The best way to do that, she decided, was to work on a master's degree in poultry science under the guidance of professor Adam Davis.

"I grew up in suburban Atlanta and had never seen a chicken before," says Hoffman, who now feels so at home that she served as an official "ambassador" for CAES, explaining its attractions to students who might hold outdated "ag school" notions. The college's student body is a far cry from the days when it was made up exclusively of the children of Georgia farmers. Today, students are more likely to be attracted to CAES by world-class science or a love of horseback riding than by a youth spent milking cows.

"Less than five percent of our students come directly from a farm and probably one percent of our graduates go back to farming," says David A. Knauft, CAES's associate dean for academic affairs. The bulk of the college's graduates go into white-collar industry positions or related fields such as extension services, research, or teaching.

The number of undergraduate students is currently at about 1,200, up from a recent low of 1,000 and down from the all-time high of 1,400. Enrollment swings are associated with the state of agricultural economy and, for the past five years, commodity prices have been in the doldrums due to global competition and trade agreements. Yet enrollment is going up. One of the principal attractions of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is that despite the tough economy, graduates are finding jobs in their fields of study.

"We have job opportunities for every student we graduate," says Gale A. Buchanan, dean and director of CAES. "I was talking with a leader in the poultry industry and he said, 'You guys need to graduate more poultry majors.' And he's right. We need twice as many poultry graduates."

But far more has changed than the makeup of the student body. The college has developed an international reputation as an epicenter of leading-edge research in animal and plant genetics—at the same time it is performing its 90-year-old role of putting UGA research to work directly on Georgia farms and in homes around the state. The college has become one of the most responsive problem-solving centers in the state for everyone from groundskeepers worried about parched golf courses to parents worried about the mysterious plant a child just ate to farmers wondering how to store onions year-round.

CAES is where research turns into action. That's what attracted Rodney Nash, who became interested in the college while searching UGA's Web page as a Georgia State undergrad. He found information about Steve Stice's cloning work and realized that CAES would allow him to put his scientific knowledge into practice. "Applied science," he says, "is a breath of fresh air."

Economic Impact

As dean of CAES, Gale Buchanan embodies the many roles his college plays. He wears business suits befitting the leader of a $170 million-a-year research, education, and outreach organization. But when he walks out of Conner Hall to the dean's parking space, he climbs behind the wheel of a Chevy Silverado—a working farmer's pickup truck. A gregarious man who has a Ph.D. in plant physiology from Iowa State and an abiding interest in his family's farm in Florida, Buchanan keeps one foot in the ancient, earthy art of growing crops and the other in the outer reaches of futuristic technology. He sums up the extremes with the story of a single phone call.

"I was at the Capitol during the legislative session and a farmer from southeast Georgia called on his cell phone and reached me on my cell phone. He was standing in his field near Statesboro and he wanted to know if we had been successful in negotiating the rights to a gene to put in a variety of peanuts. Now that's getting pretty far out."

Horses ($248 million) surpassed peanuts ($232 million) in the latest value rankings of 62 Georgia commodities.

While bringing state-of-the-art technology to Georgia agriculture, the college dutifully plays its historic role down on the farm.

"We're at the cutting-edge of technology, but we also have to do the bread-and-butter things that farmers need on a daily basis," says Buchanan. "For example, the most popular publication we have is the Variety Report. Now, that's not very high-powered research, but comparing varieties of peanuts, cotton, corn, and soybeans is something farmers live by."

Agriculture remains the most important economic engine in Georgia. The total "farm-gate" value of agricultural products on the state's economy was $8.8 billion last year. Total farm production, processing, and marketing chain produced about $60 billion, making it the state's single-largest industry.

John McKissick, director of CAES's Center for Agribusiness & Economic Development, recently made headlines when he announced the latest value rankings of 62 Georgia commodities—which showed that horses had surpassed peanuts, climbing to fifth place with a value of $248 million, while peanuts were ranked ninth at $232 million. Spearheading that rise was the popularity of horseback riding in metro Atlanta. The No. 1 commodity was broilers ($3.2 billion). Food and fiber production is the largest segment of the economy in a third of Georgia's 159 counties and ranks No. 2 in another third. The fastest growing segment is the "green industry," which includes turf grasses, shrubs, and ornamentals.

World-Class Research

Of all the professors on campus, perhaps the best known is Steve Stice, who became world-famous after producing two cloned Holsteins named Charlie and George. One of three Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholars employed by CAES, Stice is a reproductive physiologist and professor in the department of animal and dairy science. Stice not only has patented cloning techniques that promise more efficient cattle and pig breeding, he also is conducting human stem-cell research that raises hopes for biomedical breakthroughs to improve the lives of people who suffer from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS, spinal cord injuries, brain trauma, and cardiovascular disease.

"These are complex diseases," says Stice, "but we have a lot of good people working on them." Included in that group is Brian Condie, a former research scientist at the Medical College of Georgia who now works for UGA. Condie and Stice began collaborating as part of a UGA-MCG biomedical initiative that holds a great deal of promise for the future.

Stice's colleague, Clifton Baile, is the GRA Eminent Scholar in agricultural biotechnology and a distinguished professor in the departments of animal science and foods and nutrition. His work focuses on the application of cutting-edge biotechnology discoveries—such as the development of animals with genetically altered cells—to improve the efficiency of agricultural production. Baile and Stice were recently joined by a third Eminent Scholar, Stephen Dalton, an Australian who was recruited by the public-private GRA as a molecular cell biologist to focus on animal genomics, the study of material that comprises the animal's genetic blueprint. With three Eminent Scholars, CAES has one-third of these prestigious positions on campus and is advertising for a fourth in plant genomics.

CAES researchers have a way of turning pie-in-the-sky science into real-world value with remarkable speed—and the good work is not confined to Athens. The National Environmentally Sound Production Agriculture Laboratory is located on the college's Tifton campus. NESPAL was created in 1991 to help maintain efficient agricultural production, assure consumers of a safe and affordable food and fiber supply, and protect natural resources and the environment.

Buchanan, who headed the Tifton campus before coming to Athens, points with pride to the college's role in Georgia's world-famous Vidalia onion industry: "The Vidalia onion was a $10 million industry until one of our faculty in Tifton—Doyle Smittle, who's now retired—took the controlled atmospheric storage technology that had been developed in apples and adapted it for onions. As a result, the Vidalia onion industry went from a $10 million crop to a $90 million crop." Another breakthrough by UGA researchers in Tifton led to the Georgia Green variety of peanut, which has had a beneficial effect on peanut production worldwide.

Water is a major focus of the college with some 75 faculty involved in researching ways to preserve and use water better throughout the state. Many of them serve on key committees working on water resources, and they come at it from every angle. A UGA turf team led the development of Seashore Paspalum, a grass now in use on golf courses that adapts well to coastal environments—and can even be treated with salt water. A new water research park near Camilla is looking into the use of Global Positioning Systems and computers in irrigation projects to help farmers apply water only in areas where it is needed, not on highways that run beside their fields.

"We are developing new technologies and systems to minimize irrigation use, both in the technology of delivery of irrigation and in the genetic modification of plants so they will be more drought-tolerant and require less water to reach the same production levels," says Robert Shulstad, CAES's assistant dean for research.

In some circles, Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety in Griffin, is as well known as Steve Stice. Doyle, one of the world's leading authorities on E. coli, was called in to help during E. coli outbreaks at Atlanta's Whitewater park in 1998 and at Jack-in-the-Box in California in 1993. Doyle is focusing his work on avoiding E. coli outbreaks rather than reacting to them. "A lot of what we're doing now is developing practical, effective intervention strategies that can be applied on the farm and in processing facilities," he says. The solutions would be patented by the University. The Center for Food Safety is also developing a promising way to reduce Listeria, a food-borne, disease-causing bacterium sometimes found in the drains of restaurants and processing plants.

In Athens, Buchanan is especially proud of the year-old, $15 million Center for Applied Genetic Technologies funded by the GRA. The East Campus center was created through grass-roots lobbying by visionary faculty members and now houses state-of-the-art facilities in plant and animal genomics. It also houses a business incubator supported by the Woodruff Foundation that provides a link between the University and carefully selected companies that want to commercialize UGA's scientific breakthroughs.

New Degrees

The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences currently offers 23 majors—more than half of which didn't exist a decade ago—and two new degree programs were added this fall. One is in agriscience and environmental systems, which will be the first UGA degree offered at the Tifton campus. New in Athens this fall is a major in applied biotechnology, which will enable students to apply the college's genetics expertise in animal science, plant science, or the food industry.

CAES is seeing rapid growth in its two engineering majors: agricultural engineering and biological engineering. Each has more than 100 students.

"The neat thing about the number of majors we offer through this college," says Mel Garber, associate dean for Extension, is that a lot of our students have gone out and started their own businesses."

Cooperative Extension Service

In 1914, Sen. Hoke Smith, a former Georgia governor, co-sponsored the federal act that created the extension service —a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and land-grant universities that's been called "the largest problem-solving educational system in the world." UGA's first outreach had come three years earlier by train via the "College on Wheels" that carried exhibitions of the ag school's 20th Century breakthroughs to farmers throughout Georgia.

"We are the primary outreach arm of the University," says Garber, who took over as associate dean after heading CAES's Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. "We take information and put it to use."

The extension service has 312 funded positions for county agents, and counties chip in $12 million to pay for their share of the agents' time. Agents work in three main program areas: agriculture and natural resources, 4-H and youth programs, and family and consumer sciences. Agents act as a liaison between citizens and the University's wealth of research, not only in CAES, but with the colleges of forestry and family and consumer sciences.

One of the most exciting tools in agents' hands is Digital Distance Diagnostic Imaging, which enables agents to determine the threat of pests or plants without leaving their offices. For example, a 3-year-old South Georgia boy ate a plant that worried his parents, who called the local number for poison control. The poison control office called Ben Hill extension agent Tim Hall. Unsure what the plant was, Hall turned to botanists on the UGA campus, 187 miles away. But he didn't have to rush the plant to Athens. He took a digital picture and e-mailed it via DDDI.

Hall's e-mail was transmitted to UGA's Herbarium, where two botanists identified the plant as American nightshade—which is poisonous. The information was quickly sent to doctors in Fitzgerald who administered the appropriate treatment and the young boy recovered.

County agents have historically played the role of teachers and trusted advisors to Georgia citizens.

"Your county agent's office is the campus of the University of Georgia," says Lamar Martin, a long-time agent who is now assistant dean for extension, "The best county agents like to serve their fellow man. They usually have good people skills, they communicate well, and relate well."

The extension service is the practical way a land-grant university delivers the fruits of its research directly into the homes of citizens throughout the state.

"Our opportunities to contribute have never been greater than they are now," says Garber, "based on technical competence and the ability to deliver information to address most of the top issues in both rural and urban areas."

The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has become an important player in protecting the state's environment for the future, but perhaps its most important new role is in defending the country from agro-terrorism. CAES scientists took a hard look at the economic havoc that struck Great Britain during a Foot and Mouth disease outbreak and realized with a shudder the amount of harm a terrorist could cause the American economy by spreading diseases that affect the nation's food supply.

And this was before Sept. 11, 2001. After terrorists struck in New York and Washington, agricultural researchers approached their work with a new urgency.

Mike Doyle at the Center for Food Safety is one of the UGA faculty members involved in committees planning to protect the nation against agro-terrorists. He declines to talk about specifics for security reasons. But he says concerns about biological terrorism range from anthrax to Foot and Mouth disease to food poisoning.

"If you really wanted to do damage to a country, you wouldn't use an airplane to fly into the World Trade Center . . . you would destroy the food supply," says Buchanan. "A lot of people don't realize how tenuous that food supply is. About the only people who do realize it are those who are involved in it. Everybody else takes food for granted."

Ivery Clifton, the senior associate dean who provides guidance for a faculty committee trying to define a vision for the college for the 21st Century, wants to help people understand agriculture better.

"The thing I am most concerned about is that the future of agriculture lies in the hands of that 95 percent of the population that neither understands, knows, nor cares about agriculture," says Clifton. "And the five percent of us in the business must find a better way to communicate the value, the issues, and the importance of American agriculture."

Back to Top . Up Front . Features . Alumni Profiles . Class Notes . Back to Current Issue