New Investments for One Health Solutions in Agriculture

Feb 18, 2025

RDAR, a major Canadian agriculture research funder, and Genome Alberta are pleased to announce the approval of approximately $3.3 million in funding for several important One Health projects. One Health recognizes the intrinsic link between the health of people, animals, and the environment. This approach is essential for anticipating, preventing, detecting, and controlling diseases that spread between plants, animals, and humans.

To read the Press Release and learn more about the funded projects, please visit: RDAR Delivers Multi-Million Dollar Investment to make One Health Solutions A Reality

In collaboration with RDAR, Genome Alberta facilitated the Accelerating Agriculture Innovation One Health Solutions competition to address the priority issues of Chronic Wasting Disease, Feral Pigs, African Swine Fever, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Livestock through a One Health approach. Supported research projects utilize genomic-enabled technologies, which offer collaborative, effective and cost-efficient approaches to provide solutions to One Health challenges and benefit Alberta producers.

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Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.