Source: NC A&T COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, 4/25/22


A faculty member in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences will use new federal grant funding to determine if the medicinal plant Moringa oleifera can relieve heat stress in pregnant and nursing pigs.

Radiah C. Minor, Ph.D., an associate professor of immunology in the Department of Animal Sciences, recently received a two-year, $300,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture through its Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). NIFA is a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Pork is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States, and North Carolina is one of the nation’s largest pork producers. A growing threat to the industry is heat stress, which can have negative effects on the health and performance of pigs. High temperatures can compound problems for gestating and lactating sows, particularly because they eat less food. This is something that can have dire consequences for piglets – and future generations of swine.

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