CFAES Impact: May/June 2022

  1. New CFAES technology offers healthier beverage processing

    Food processing companies looking for innovative new ways to preserve clean-label liquid foods without artificial preservatives have a new option thanks to technology developed at CFAES. 

    Researchers in the CFAES departments of Food Science and Technology, as well as Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering have installed and commissioned new manufacturing technology that preserves foods and beverages using wholesome, recognizable ingredients; no artificial preservatives; and reduced heat. They’re seeking food and beverage companies to join a Food Industry Consortium to begin using the technology.

    Called BaroShear MAX ultra-shear technology (UST), this method of high-pressure-based shear technology allows beverage companies to manufacture healthier beverages by reducing thermal exposure through the combined application of elevated pressure, shear technology, and controlled times and temperatures.

    The result? “Healthier beverages that consumers want that aren’t preserved using chemical additives and preservatives with names they can’t pronounce,” said V.M. “Bala” Balasubramaniam, a CFAES professor of food engineering. is laboratory—including microbiologists, chemists, and nutritionists—investigates food manufacturing technologies and works with industry to implement them.

    And it’s not just drinks that could be preserved healthier. UST can be used by food manufacturers for processing sauces, condiments, and other liquid foods, including nutritional drinks, ice cream mixes, juices, and food emulsions.

    “UST enables liquid food and beverage producers to meet the changing dietary desires of health-conscious consumers interested in minimally processed liquid foods and beverages that quench thirst and satisfy their healthy lifestyle,” he said. UST also satisfies liquid food manufacturers’ interest in developing a continuous 
    high-pressure processing method. That’s significant, considering that the batch 
    high-pressure processing industry is now estimated to be a $15 billion per year market. Balasubramaniam partnered with Pressure BioSciences Inc., a Massachusetts-based manufacturer of high-pressure-based equipment and laboratory instrumentation, on the project. They plan to create a consortium of interested food processors on industrially relevant questions before scaling up the UST into industrial practice.

    Food processors can learn about UST through a pilot-scale system at Ohio State’s Center for Clean Food Process Technology Development. Consortium members will also have first rights to nonexclusively license all new applications for commercial utilization in their own products, worldwide. To learn more about this initiative, contact Balasubramaniam at 614-292-1732 or balasubramaniam.1@osu.edu. 

  2. CFAES project to improve food safety in Kenya

    The CFAES Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention (CFI) has been awarded a $770,000 grant to improve food safety and prevent foodborne illnesses in Kenya. 

    The initiative is one of four new research projects announced by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative.

    The 3.5-year project, “Chakula salama: a risk-based approach to reducing foodborne diseases and increasing production of safe foods in Kenya,” includes researchers from Ohio State, the University of Florida, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, and the University of Nairobi, all of whom will develop and test food safety interventions to support Kenya’s small-scale poultry producers.

    This work is significant considering that foodborne diseases cause an estimated  91 million illnesses and $16.7 billion in human capital losses annually in Africa, said Barbara Kowalcyk, CFI director. She is also a faculty member in the CFAES Department of Food Science and Technology, as well as the Translational Data Analytics Institute at Ohio State.

    “This project will use a systems-based approach to answer important food safety questions and build an enabling environment that fosters the implementation of risk-based approaches to food safety in Kenya and, eventually, other African countries,” she said.

    The project focuses on reducing the risk of illnesses from Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry produced by women and youth poultry farmers. Kowalcyk, two CFI staffers, and two CFAES students traveled to Kenya in March to work with some 100 Kenyan poultry producers, with a goal of developing a roadmap for allocating resources and building capacity for Kenyans to implement food safety measures recommended by CFI.

    Our goal is to improve access to safe food and improve food security and nutrition,” Kowalcyk said. “This will have a huge impact on food in Kenya.”

    Founded as a nonprofit organization in 2006, CFI brought its 16-year record of protecting public health to CFAES in September 2019. The center has a mission to advance a more scientific, risk-based food safety system that prevents foodborne illnesses and protects public health by translating science into policy and practice. To learn more about CFI, visit  foodsafety.osu.edu.  

  3. How (and why) to make your farm more weather resilient

    Climate change is happening. It’s happening here. It’s happening now. 

    That’s the message Aaron Wilson, OSU Extension climate specialist, is sharing with Ohio farmers. He talks to them about how they can make their farms more resilient to weather extremes—to the warmer-than-average temperatures, unusually heavy rains, flooding, and more that Ohio is seeing from climate change.

    “It’s not a future issue,” Wilson says. “The time to prepare is right now.”

    Improving weather resilience requires adaptation, Wilson says—determining your farm’s impacts from weather extremes, then deciding what to do about them. He suggests a process from the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science’s 
    (NIACS) Adaptation Workbook:

    1.    Define your management objectives.

    2.     Assess your weather impacts and vulnerabilities.

    3.     Evaluate your management objectives, given your vulnerabilities.

    4.    Identify your adaptation tactics.

    5.     Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your actions.

    6.     Then, based on your evaluation, return to Step 1 and repeat.

    “Adaptation is site-specific. There’s no single answer for everyone,” Wilson says. Farms will all experience weather impacts differently, depending on factors such as location, crops, and topography. So, you should base your adaptation changes on what you’re seeing at the farm level.”

    It’s a real personal thing,” Wilson says.

    Adaptation can involve practices such as drainage, irrigation, or switching to a more disease-resistant crop variety. It’s affected by finances—Can you afford to change the practice? Can you afford not to?—and by factors such as crop insurance. But a key to much of it is soil health, Wilson says. Practices such as no-till and cover crops, implemented to boost soil health, also improve weather resilience. They make crop plants hardier, reduce erosion, and slow down runoff, for instance.

    At the same time, soil health practices also improve water quality and sequester carbon, the latter helping fight climate change.

    All these things are good for crops, which can ultimately be good for profit as well, so finding those environmentally sustainable practices that are also economically profitable is a key area of building a weather-resilient farm,” Wilson says.

    “We’re trying to maintain profitability or farmers in light of, or in spite of, these increasing challenges they have throughout the year.”

    To learn more, contact Wilson at wilson.1010@osu.edu or 614-292-7930.

    Use the free NIACS Adaptation Workbook available at adaptationworkbook.org.

    Check out the Midwest Climate Hub at climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/Midwest and its adaptation tools at climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/northern-forests/adaptation-tools.

  4. The Dean’s Charity Steer Show returns to the Ohio State Fair

    We’re excited to be back!

    The Ohio State Fair is back in 2022 and along with it, the Dean’s Charity Steer Show! After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the event on Tuesday, Aug. 2, will once again benefit the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) of Central Ohio.

    More than 900 spectators attended the inaugural 2019 event, and nearly 8,000 tuned in to watch via livestream on Facebook. Hosted by Cathann A. Kress, vice president for agricultural administration and dean of CFAES, the show raised $152,000 for RMHC.

    Central Ohio celebrity exhibitors team up with experienced 4-H members and their steers to compete in the show for bragging rights. Following the show, an auction “sale” takes place in the show ring. No actual animals trade hands. Instead, all bids and sale proceeds are donated to RMHC.

    For more information, visit deanscharitysteershow.osu.edu.

  5. What’s good for your lawn can be good for the water

    Get tips for keeping lawns green and water blue in a newly revised fact sheet from CFAES.

    Called Efficient Lawn Care Practices to Help Protect Ohio’s Waterways, the fact sheet details exactly that—ways to get the most out of your fertilizer dollar, make your lawn as healthy as it can be, and prevent the runoff of nutrients that can lead to harmful algal blooms.

    What’s the best time of year to apply fertilizer? Why test your soil? What does “N-P-K” mean? Answers are in the fact sheet, whose authors are experts from CFAES and Davey Tree.

    You can read or download the fact sheet for free at go.osu.edu/greenlawncare.

  6. New publications

    Extension has two new publications of interest to farmers, available for order. Spring Frost Injury of Grapevines and Protection Methods is available in book format for $7.50, and Low-pressure Piping in Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems for Ohio is available in PDF format for download for $4.50.

    Copies of these and other OSU Extension publications are available through local OSU Extension offices and online at extensionpubs.osu.edu. Ohio residents get the best price when they order and pick up their purchases through their local Extension offices.

  7. Bonus Reads

    Learn tips for improving wellness through Extension’s Live Smart Ohio blog.

    Discover how to live well with arthritis by following this advice from Extension educators.

    Check out how to provide self-care for the caregiver by reading this Extension fact sheet.