Areas of Exploration

Agricultural and environmental research is foundational in the land-grant university mission – education for everyone, research for scientifically based decisions and extension outreach to help ensure scientifically based agriculture in practiced in America.

Agricultural and environmental research has three parts:

  • basic, which provides the discoveries for solution to the unknown problems of tomorrow;
  • applied, which uses the solutions of past basic research to address the problems of today; and 
  • directed, which delivers immediate actions to improve our agricultural systems.

We need all three for a healthy agriculture industry and to sustain the environment. At the University of Georgia, we excel at all three, and deliver a $144.4 million boost to Georgia’s economy.


CAES research at UGA delivers a $144.4 million boost to Georgia's economy.
Discover Our Impact

Research News

Scott Jackson CAES News
CAES plant geneticist develops new tools to improve crops
Meet Scott Jackson, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Synthetic Biology. Jackson's research at the University of Georgia focuses on accelerating crop improvement to benefit farmers, communities and a rapidly expanding global population. “We’re utilizing advanced modeling to explore the role of multiple, interacting aspects of agricultural systems, genetics to management, with the ultimate goal of improving productivity and sustainability,” said Jackson, faculty in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Graduate students Leniha Lagarde (left) and Sofia Varriano collect feces samples from pastured chickens at Foster Brady Farms in Madison, Georgia. CAES News
Poop with a purpose: CAES study analyzes chicken feces to boost farm sustainability
Calling all chicken wranglers: If you raise free-range or pastured chickens on your commercial farm, researchers at the University of Georgia want to know what your feathered friends are eating. To find out, the research team at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences wants your chicken poop for the Chicken Ecology and Ecosystem Services, or ChickEES, study.
Fire ants attack queen ants CAES News
Minority rules: Fire ant study reveals power of the few
Researchers at UGA working with fire ants are trying to understand how a small group of ants can convince a larger group to change a fundamental aspect of their behavior—whether they kill or nurture multiple queens. Their work was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author is Haolin Zeng, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology who completed his PhD at the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2022.