John Suttie, emeritus professor of biochemistry at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, has received the 22nd annual Bristol-Myers Squibb/Mead Johnson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research.

With so many people using over- the-counter herbal supplements as a means to promote health, one UW-Madison researcher is wondering why we don”t hunt for health-promoting properties among the ordinary plants we grow for food.

Improving the lighting in dairy barns and regularly keeping the lights on during the shorter days of fall and winter is one of the most profitable investments a farmer can make-even better than milking three times a day, says a University of Wisconsin-Madison dairy scientist.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are approaching the halfway mark in a nationwide survey of dairy producers that’s part of an effort to prevent Johne’s disease. Cooperating dairy producers will get free confidential testing of their cows, and they’ll be helping to reduce the impact of a disease that costs the U.S. dairy industry hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Health insurance is almost always expensive for the self-employed, because they do not have access to large-pool group insurance and its associated lower premiums. However, among the self-employed, farmers are especially hard-hit.

For dairy farm families across Wisconsin, health insurance has become one more major problem in their lives. A new University of Wisconsin-Madison study reveals that more than 40 percent of dairy farmers either have no health insurance at all, or have insurance that does not cover all their family members.

Each year approximately 1,000 farmers with disabilities receive direct assistance from AgrAbility – a national program funded by the USDA and supported by staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – for help to continue farming. On a national level, agriculture has one of the highest disabling injury rates of any occupation. And in Wisconsin alone, more than 4,000 farm injuries occur each year, many of which result in permanent disability.

Since the discovery of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Wisconsin deer this past spring, many individuals have expressed concern over the safety of venison. This fact sheet is designed to give you some background information on CWD, and to answer questions related to venison safety and handling this fall.

Heidi Goodrich-Blair has received a $400,000 award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, as part of its program to encourage research on the interaction between disease organisms and humans. The University of Wisconsin-Madison molecular biologist will use the award to learn how some bacteria are able to evade the immune system’s first line of defense.

Many Americans know that good eating habits are an important part of overall health. But even when you count french fries and pizza sauce as vegetables, most young adults fall short of recommendations to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Improving dietary habits of this age group has important benefits: a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and some types of cancer, as well as lower long-term health care costs.