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Avian Flu Updates
The nationwide spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or bird flu, in the past few months has many concerned about livestock, pets, wildlife, food safety, and public health. HPAI is an extremely contagious disease that can kill entire poultry flocks in days. The H5N1 strain spreads from wild to domestic birds as well as mammals, including dairy cattle, wild carnivores, and pets, raising concerns about how the virus might be mutating.
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Wildlife is Everywhere
Learn how to support Illinois wildlife and navigate everyday wildlife encounters with research-based information you can trust.
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Plan Your Garden
Growing your own produce brings many rewards. Plan your garden space and find out when to plant your favorite vegetables and fruit in each Illinois plant hardiness zone.
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Grow Your Food Business
Learn about the laws, certifications, processes, and practices required to run a home-based cottage food operation safely and legally in Illinois.
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A Strategic Path for Extension Impact
Throughout 2023 and early 2024, Illinois Extension, in partnership with Huron Consulting Group, engaged in a comprehensive planning process to refine and refresh its core priorities, goals, and paths to success through internal and external stakeholder surveys, focus groups, and listening sessions statewide. The research yielded vital findings around Extension’s engagement, services, partnerships, and impact and identified shifting trends, demographics, and needs that will impact Illinois residents.
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Online weight loss program is effective way to reach rural populations, study shows
URBANA, Ill. — People living in rural areas are at greater risk for obesity than the general population, and they often have limited access to healthy, affordable food, physical activity facilities, public transportation, and healthcare institutions. Weight loss interventions are more successful…
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Maple syrup season is a short, sweet window of opportunity for tapping into trees
SIMPSON, Ill. — Maple syrup is a one-ingredient food. Only one thing goes into making it: the sap of maple trees collected in early spring. Every year in late January, the University of Illinois Extension Dixon Springs Agricultural Center in southern Illinois…
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New agroforestry maps plot environmental, social, and economic benefits of trees
URBANA, Ill. — There’s a longstanding attitude in many farming communities that trees and agriculture don’t mix. But agroforestry — the intentional integration of trees and shrubs in agricultural systems, such as planting trees as windbreaks, integrating trees on pastures, or growing tree crops…
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