THU AM News: UW economist says off-farm employment key to ensuring WI farm survival; Study sheds new light on structure of RSV proteins

October 3, 2024

— In a new report, a UW-Madison economist calls for creating and maintaining “off-farm employment opportunities” to help ensure the survival of Wisconsin farms.

The Division of Extension report was authored by Prof. Steven Deller, with the university’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.

Citing a recent analysis of the latest national Census of Agriculture, the report notes the number of farms in the state has fallen steadily over the past two decades, from 77,131 in 2002 to 58,521 in 2022. The drop for dairy farms is “even more dramatic,” he wrote, falling from 16,886 to just 6,216 over the same period.

“Several factors contribute to this trend, including the aging farm population and the high costs of starting a farming business for younger farmers,” Deller said. “A critical reason for the decline is that many farms are unable to generate sufficient income to support a farm family or household.”

Some farm families turn to other work while continuing to farm in order to supplement that income, often obtaining health insurance through these off-farm jobs, the report shows. On average, about 79% of farm family income in Wisconsin came from off-farm sources between 2018 and 2022, based on findings from the USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey.

But this trend is heavily influenced by the size of the farm, Deller noted, as off-farm income for farms with sales of $1 million or more made up about 15% of their total farm family income. Smaller farms with sales less than $100,000 averaged 102.5%, “indicating that off-farm income is not just supplementary but is also supporting the farm enterprise itself.”

He argues these farming operations wouldn’t be sustainable without such income, noting about three-fourths of farms in the state fall under that smaller farm category. While 3.7% have sales between $500,000 and $999,999, another 3% have sales of $1 million or more.

Deller says rural communities dependence on farming “has reversed,” with typical farms in the state increasingly relying on their surrounding communities and the opportunities for work that they provide.

“Therefore, an immediate strategy to help ensure the survival of many Wisconsin farms is to create and maintain off-farm employment opportunities,” he wrote.

See the report.

— A recent study from UW-Madison researchers has shed new light on the complex structure of RSV, with a focus on potential targets for drug development.

A team led by biochemistry Prof. Elizabeth Wright published a study in the journal Nature with new images of the respiratory syncytial virus, which poses a greater health risk to young children, the elderly and others at high risk for complications from respiratory disease.

They used an imaging technique called cryo-electron tomography, which can freeze viral particles at “ultracold” temperatures, halting their biological processes. By quickly freezing many individual RSV particles, the researchers are able to image different configurations of the virus from various angles.

By combining these two-dimensional images, they can create a three-dimensional model of the virus’ structures down to the atomic level, according to the university.

“Our primary findings reveal structural details that allow us to better understand not only how the protein regulates assembly of viral particles, but also the coordination of proteins that enable the virus to be infectious,” Wright said in a statement.

The study focused on two specific RSV proteins that are “crucial” to how the virus interacts with the membranes of host cells. One of these — called RSV F proteins — forms pairs, and the researchers think these pairs “may be a key to destabilizing the virus” before it can infect the next host. That makes it a possible target for future drugs targeting RSV.

Going forward, researchers will continue to study how RSV proteins interact to infect people, the university says.

See more in the release.

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— Voximetry has received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Cancer Institute to improve a post-cancer therapy imaging method, the Madison company announced recently.

The funding from the institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is aimed at boosting the efficiency and accuracy of a nuclear medicine imaging technique called theranostic SPECT/CT, according to a release. Earlier findings suggest the project could cut the time required for the scan by 75%, the company says.

“The results from our Phase 1 work are compelling,” Voximetry CEO Dr. Sue Wallace said in the release. “Today’s theranostic centers face significant constraints due to limited scanner availability. Reducing scan times by a factor of four to increase department throughput would be really good for the clinic, and even better for the patient.”

The announcement touts the company’s “cutting-edge, AI-driven” software and notes this is its fifth significant funding award from the NIH.

See more at Madison Startups.

— Marquette University has announced a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant, supporting efforts to improve processes following funding awards.

The university will use the NSF funds to develop and evaluate “an interwoven approach” to improving the processes following award funding. That’s according to Katherine Durben, executive director of research and sponsored programs and principal investigator on this award.

“This funding will allow us to implement an advocate position designed to work with [principal investigators] to bridge the gap between a central office and departments,” Durben said in a statement. “We will also develop processes to allow for scalability, efficiency and transparency in post-award activities.”

Marquette reports a record-high $58.9 million in grant award dollars in 2024, which is 15% higher than the previous year and a nearly 75% increase over fiscal year 2019. The university also hit a new record in fiscal year 2022 for research and development expenditures with more than $40.6 million, exceeding $40 million for the first time.

That R&D figure is more than twice as much as the total from a decade earlier, the release shows.

The university in 2019 received a $1 million NSF ADVANCE award, which funds efforts to reduce “organizational barriers” holding back faculty members from underrepresented groups. Jeanne Hossenlopp, vice president for research and innovation, says the new NSF grant will help “address the challenges” around delivering post-research award support, which Marquette had begun to explore through that ADVANCE award.

“We feel that our continued collaboration between staff and faculty to co-create solutions to shared concerns will not only benefit and support Marquette faculty, but also be scalable for other universities,” Hossenlopp said.

See the release.

— New data shows Wisconsin Technical College System enrollment was down 0.2%, or 586 students, in 2023-24 compared to the previous year.

According to statistics released Monday, WTCS’s headcount in the 2023-34 school year dropped to 287,365 from 287,951 after increasing for two consecutive years.

Eleven of the state’s 16 technical colleges saw decreases in headcount. Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland saw the biggest decrease, down 10.1%, while Moraine Park Technical College saw the biggest increase, up 7.8%.

WTCS finalizes numbers on an annual basis, for the previous school year, because the colleges accept students throughout the year, the programs do not run in traditional semesters and many colleges offer tracks in seven- or eight-week program sessions. Numbers for the current school year will be released a year from now.

The system also saw a shift in race/ethnicity demographics compared to last year, with:

1,647 more students who identified as Black.
4,426 fewer students who identified as White.
3,621 more students who identified as Hispanic.
310 fewer students who identified as American Indian.
485 more students who identified as Asian.
120 more students who identified as multi-ethnic.
20 fewer students who identified as Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.
28,483 students who did not report their race/ethnicity, over 8,000 of whom were from Fox Valley.

And a shift in gender demographics compared to last year, with 144 more women, 1,874 fewer men and 10,846 who did not report their gender.

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