Newsroom: 2010

MSU Study Explores Why Residents Ride Out Storms
(Mississippi State University, September 16, 2010)

Two Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station scientists recently explored why coastal residents choose to leave or to weather the storm. Funded by the Northern Gulf Institute, agricultural economists Daniel Petrolia and Sanjoy Bhattacharjee developed and distributed 2,000 surveys in the coastal counties of four Gulf of Mexico states, targeting the first two inland counties in each state.
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LSU AgCenter Receives USDA Grant for Wood-based Bioenergy
(Louisiana Forest Products Development Center, July 2010)

The LSU AgCenter has been named as a recipient of one of 22 U.S. Department of Agriculture grants supporting agricultural market research and demonstration projects.

The AgCenter award will be used to identify high-potential, wood-based bioenergy business options that can be integrated into business models of forest landowners and wood product manufacturers and distributors in Louisiana, said Richard Vlosky, who will head the Louisiana program.

In addition to Vlosky, who is director of the LSU AgCenter’s Louisiana Forest Products Development Center, the project will include Ramesh Kolluru and Mark Smith with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette-Center for Business and Information Technologies and Charles D’Agostino with the LSU Louisiana Business and Technology Center.

USDA awarded 22 matching grants totaling more than $1.3 million to 18 states under the Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program. The projects will explore new and innovative approaches to marketing U.S. food and agricultural products and to improve the efficiency and performance of the marketing system.

The grants focus on developing agricultural marketing strategies for an array of projects including eight local/regional food projects, two bioenergy projects, a farm-to-school project and a food safety for direct marketers project.

The grant program funds a wide range of applied research projects that address barriers, challenges and opportunities in marketing, transporting and distributing U.S. food and agricultural products domestically and internationally, according to USDA officials.

LSU Group Develops Maps Charting Demographics of the Oil Spill Region
(LSU News, April 30, 2010) 

A multidisciplinary group of LSU researchers has developed  a series of maps charting the population demographics of the region surrounding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The oil spill has implications for multiple demographic segments of the population,” said Troy Blanchard, LSU professor of sociology. “It’s important that we be able to identify at risk populations in order to determine where needs for support infrastructures may fall.”

The maps detail the percentage of impoverished areas impacted by the spill; the amount of minorities in affected areas; the amount of workers employed in the oil and gas extraction industry; and the total population overall in those areas. All maps are available at below.

In addition to Blanchard, the group consists of Tim Slack, assistant professor of sociology, and Matthew Fannin and Mark Schafer, both from the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at the LSU AgCenter.

L.D.W.F. Releases Wild Crawfish Survey Results 
(Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, April 30, 2010)

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) released the results of a  Louisiana resident commercial fishermen wild crawfish survey.  The survey was sent to all Louisiana resident commercial fishermen who reported harvesting wild crawfish between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009, to obtain their opinion on a number of proposed or hypothetical changes in regulations or management practices.
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Schiavinato to Receive Governor’s Conservation Achievement Honor
(March 30, 2010)

Lisa Schiavinato of North Carolina Sea Grant has been selected as the Natural Resources Scientist of the Year in the 2009 N.C. Governor's Conservation Achievement Awards program. The award will be presented at a September event hosted by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation, which administers the statewide awards program.

Sea Grant's coastal law, policy, and community development specialist, Schiavinato, "has worked tirelessly to bring coastal policy issues to a wide range of citizens, from local communities to the General Assembly to academic institutions," said Tim Gestwicki, executive director of the N.C Wildlife Federation. "She is a very deserving award winner." 

Survey Finds Many Support Paying for Barrier Island Repairs Out of Own Pocket
(The Mississippi Press, March 9, 2010)

A majority of people in Mississippi support paying from their own pockets to stop further erosion of the state's barrier islands, according to a Mississippi State University economist Monday at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. Dan Petrolia, an agriculture economist, reported the results of surveys conducted in summer 2008 in Mississippi and Louisiana on coastal issues at the Coastal Restoration and Enhancement Through Science and Technology workshop. 
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