Illinois ACES Office of International Programs

05/28/2026

International exchange was a foundational experience for Ron and Melanie Warfield, and now, the couple hopes to help students follow in their footsteps. Through a $1 million gift to the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the c...

04/15/2026

We are kicking off the 9th annual international food security symposium at Illinois with a poster session featuring our undergraduate food security interns.

03/31/2026

Congratulations to our own Dr. Paul McNamara and student Mia Bonds for winning 2026 campus-wide Illinois International awards!

Paul E. McNamara, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, and Mia Bonds, an undergraduate student in ACE, are winners of 2026 International Achievement Awards from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Illinois International. These awards recognize outstanding alu...

03/24/2026

An ACES International Seed Grant success story:

Hydrological models represent water movement in natural systems, and they are important for water resource planning and management. But the models depend on reliable input data for weather factors, and precipitation can be very difficult to measure and represent accurately.

01/28/2026

ACES professor Hope Michelson is featured on the high-profile VoxDev Talks podcast to discuss how more focus should be on the supply side (seed, fertilizer, agrodealers) to improve agricultural productivity in developing countries.

"The conversation challenges the assumption that improved agricultural technologies will naturally reach farmers once demand is stimulated, and instead shows how weaknesses in supply chains, logistics, finance, and trust can severely limit adoption and impact."

Michelson is working closely with the seed systems team at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), her grad student Hannah Wilwerth, PhD student Anna Fairbairn, and ACES alum Alix Naugler who is now in a PhD program at Cornell.

The episode is linked to below and is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Low agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be explained by farmer behaviour alone, as major supply-side failures in input markets mean improved seeds and fertilisers often fail to reach farmers at the right time, price, or scale. Understanding the risks, incentives, and constraints f...

11/18/2025

Join us tomorrow as we welcome Dr. Eduardo Graterol, Director of the Latin American Fund for Irrigated Rice to present a public lecture as part of Illinois International Week.

Nov. 19, 4 - 5 p.m. in W115 Turner Hall

Dr. Graterol will share insights gained from 30 years of a highly successful public-private research partnership between the Latin American rice industry, national governments, and various research organizations such as the Alliance Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). This successful collaboration which generates and disseminates knowledge, technologies, and innovations throughout Latin America can serve as a model for successful industry/research partnerships.

RSVP is requested (but not required) here: https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/116175607

11/11/2025

Four faculty from the College of ACES have received funding to further their international work through the longstanding ACES International Seed Grant program, facilitated by the Office of International Programs.

The goal of the seed grant program is to support awardees in establishing strong international relationships that will continue to expand and flourish into a larger and substantial international collaborative effort that will ultimately benefit departments, programs, the College of ACES, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Congratulations to these faculty members for their recently funded projects:

Allan Barton, Human Development and Family Studies, “Strong Couples International: A feasibility study of couple relationship research and programming in Lebanon”

McKenzie Johnson, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, “Conservation Potential in Indigenous Landscapes: An Integrated Analysis” (India)

Juan Loor, Animal Sciences, “Black solder fly oil: An alternative feed resource to sustain lamb farming in Indonesia”

Jessica Rutkoski, Crop Sciences, “Partnering with The Roslin Institute to Enhance Genetic Improvement Research at the University of Illinois”

09/02/2025

Thank you Chambana Today for this great spotlight on our International Agronomy Day last week:

“This is a rare opportunity to share Illinois’ agricultural innovations with a global audience.”

08/25/2025

We along with Illinois Crop Sciences hosted around 300 people from around the world at today’s International Agronomy Day!

08/20/2025

We are honored to be involved as implementing U.S. partner on this project for the third year and appreciate the great work and expertise our colleague Madhu Khanna put into this collaboration and final document.

We are excited to share that the 2025 cohort of the U.S.-German Forum Future Agriculture has just released a new set of policy recommendations. Over the past months, U.S. and German farmers, researchers, and agribusiness experts came together to explore the intersection of land use, energy, and agricultural production – and to identify strategies to strengthen food and energy security and foster transatlantic collaboration.

The U.S.-German Forum Future Agriculture – jointly organized by the Aspen Institute Germany and the University of Illinois College of ACES – connects agricultural stakeholders across the Atlantic to exchange best practices and develop solutions for the future of agriculture and rural regions.

🔗 Read the full publication here: https://lnkd.in/exZCjAd9

📢 Join the conversation: We will host a public virtual event with policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and business representatives to discuss this important topic on September 24, 2025. 🔗 Event details & registration: https://lnkd.in/eck9gq-Z

Thank you to the 2025 cohort and publication authors: Angela Heinssen (Kanzlei an der Lühe); Breanna Reed (Bee-Ewe-tiful Farms); Arne Guttulsröd (AGN Neunheilingen GmbH); Benjamin Riensche (Blue Diamond Farming Company); Joel Tatum (American Farmland Trust); Jonas Trippner (DLG e.V. – German Agricultural Society); Genevieve Byrne (Vermont Law and Graduate School); Denny Tumlirsch (Landesbauernverband Brandenburg); Sylvia Lauer (Maientalerhof); Cetta Barnhart (Seed Time Harvest Farms); Eden Vardy (The Farm Collaborative); Madhu Khanna (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign); Charlotte Schumacher (NORIKA GmbH/ Schumacher GbR); Manuela Schneider (Domäne Hofschwicheldt & Erlebnisspeicher); Lukas Mißlbeck (Ostharzer Bodenkultur GmbH & Co. KG).

The project is funded by the Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany with funds from the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany (BMWE).