Biological systems engineering professor Robert Anex is part of a team recently awarded a $2.5M grant from USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The goal of the project is to examine and identify strategies to increase water and energy use efficiency in irrigated agriculture. The project team includes scientists, farmers and policymakers, and they will focus on three areas of the country: the High Plains, California’s Central Valley and Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.

Anex and his colleagues at UW–Madison will study changes in water and energy use due to increases in agricultural production required by increasing population, shifts in global diet and changing climate. They will then measure expected changes in the energy, water and carbon footprints of agricultural production by crop and region. By analyzing these food-energy-water systems, Anex and his colleagues will identify strategies to increase food production while using water and energy sustainably.

For more information about the grant, see this press release from Michigan State University.