Ashley Evans hails from Moorefield, West Virginia, a town in the Potomac Highlands known as a center of poultry production.
The poultry industry, and the waste it produces, has been blamed for polluting the Chesapeake Bay. Evans, a doctoral candidate in the nutritional and food science program at West Virginia University’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, is exploring ways to reduce the problem her home area produces by looking at the amount of phosphates poultry consume.
By looking at specific components of the poultry diet, and how it is digested, Evans hopes to discover ways to reduce the amount of phosphate in poultry waste, and therefore mitigate pollution effects.
“There is a lot of attention currently surrounding nutrient enrichment in bodies of water, such as the Chesapeake Bay, and poultry seems to be the source most targeted,” Evans said. “This research hopes to determine a viable way farmers can decrease phosphorus levels in poultry manure.”
Evans’ proposal was one of just 22 awarded a Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education graduate student grant from the USDA.
“(Evans) worked incredibly hard to earn this achievement. I am very proud,” said Joe Moritz, a professor of poultry science in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design and a WVU Extension specialist. “It is remarkable that poultry science students from WVU consistently outcompete students from universities that have multiple faculty dedicated to poultry science.”
SARE, founded in 1988, is a national program committed to advancing innovations that improve profitability, stewardship and quality of life by investing in groundbreaking research and education. Competitive grants are awarded to projects that explore and address key issues affecting the sustainability and future economic viability of agriculture.
Evans competed against students from universities in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. A total of 50 proposals were submitted, and only 22 selected for funding.
-WVU-
ae/dw/09/26/14
CONTACT: David Welsh, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design
304.293.2394, David.Welsh@mail.wvu.edu
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