Faculty members from North Carolina A&T State University and Prairie View A&M University have received federal funding to work as part of a national consortium to improve poultry production and safety.
The two historically black institutions are part of a six-institution team to receive a five-year, $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture designed to research how farmers can limit the use of antibiotics in raising chickens, which would reduce the occurrences of illness in the animals and mitigate opportunities for poor health outcomes associated with human consumption.
“The industry is very interested in moving away from antibiotic use, partly because of the associated expense and partly because it’s what consumers want,” said Chyi Lyi (Kathleen) Liang, Ph.D., an agricultural economics professor and co-director of the NCAT Center for Environmental Farming Systems. “This study uses an integrated systems approach to identify how each agent – the humans, chickens and environment – are affected by different strategies to tackle the antibiotic issues linking production to consumption and environmental concerns.”
