1. What types of current and future critical issues does agriculture face that no entity could address individually?

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1 May 30, 2009 The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) are pleased to submit the following recommendations concerning the development of the USDA Roadmap. With more than 25,000 members and certified professionals, ASA, CSSA, and SSSA are the largest life science professional societies in the United States dedicated to the agronomic, crop and soil sciences. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA play a major role in promoting progress in these sciences through the publication of quality journals and books, convening meetings and workshops, developing educational, training, and public information programs, providing scientific advice to inform public policy, and promoting ethical conduct among practitioners of agronomy and crop and soil sciences. ASA and SSSA certified professionals Certified Crop Advisers (CCA), Agronomists (CPAg) and Soil Scientists (CPSS) are specialists who work in the field with farmers, providing technical advice about the agronomic practices types and rates of fertilizer application, plant hybrid and variety selection, soil conservation, nutrient management, and integrated pest management most appropriate to optimize crop yield and minimize environmental impact. 1. What types of current and future critical issues does agriculture face that no entity could address individually? The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) find that USDA research, extension and education should focus on issues that are broad and regional in scope issues which individual states alone cannot tackle. While most critical issues are broad and occur at multiple scales, the coordination of research to address these issues is best approached from the middle with federally coordinated programs which have the capacity to guide local approaches, while achieving national goals. Moreover, increasingly the critical agricultural issues that we face as a nation require multi disciplinary scientific approaches. No single entity could address any of these critical issues alone because they often also span across several stakeholder communities, economic sectors, and state boundaries and require a broad portfolio of funding for basic and applied research and integrated research, education, and extension.

2 The critical issues ASA, CSSA, and SSSA have identified which will shape our nation s managed and natural ecosystems over the next 50 years include: Elucidating a better understanding of new technologies, biogeochemical interactions, and management for agricultural systems, to maximize the ecosystem services they provide; Identifying and manipulating nutrient content of specialty crops and staple foods to reduce food insecurity by providing greater access to a nutritionally balanced food supply; Developing technology and management strategies for sustainable renewable energy production; Identifying methods which reduce municipal, agricultural and livestock wastes and reuse them as soil amendments, thereby making the nutrients available for crop production. These organic amendments in turn strengthen soil structure and capitalize on soil conditioning qualities in these wastes; Developing new crops and cropping systems, appropriate irrigation technologies, and water reuse methodologies that achieve improved water use in greenhouse, cereal, and livestock based agricultural systems; Elucidating soil biological, chemical, and physical properties that can be managed to increase plant uptake of nutrients and water conservation; Quantifying and placing an economic estimate on the services provided by soil carbon; Increasing food production through attaining a better understanding of integrated systems, e.g. animal and crop whole farm management. Increasing knowledge about plant and soil interactions to address limitations on food security; Mitigating the emergence of food borne pathogens/illnesses. 2. What criteria should USDA use to prioritize agricultural science investments to address these issues? Historically, USDA was an Agency primarily focused on production agriculture, forest management, and soil conservation. Now, as new issues rise to the surface, the face of USDA is changing and areas complementary to these initial focus areas are emerging. Issues of food safety, food nutritional quality, ecosystem services, climate change, and water management are now entering the national dialogue. USDA increasingly should focus on science and information related to these critical issues. As a result, the new USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and other research agencies will be not only the source of information for innovations in production agriculture, but also

3 the main source of new technologies, management strategies, and entrepreneurial opportunities to address these new emerging issues. Raising the bar for our sciences We recommend that national program leaders within the USDA research agencies serve on a rotating basis. This will raise the bar for USDA research by placing top of the line researchers in key positions, keeping the agency on par with NSF and NIH research agencies. Renewing USDA standards of excellence by prioritizing projects which: Show relevance towards the USDA mission(s); Reward risk takers; Encourage investigation of proof of concept; Require multiple scale hypotheses of impact; Require applicant to describe "Broader Impacts" of research, e.g., potential to reduce hypoxia, manage food borne disease outbreaks, increase production, and improve water use; Require that high risk proposals include preliminary data; Require that proposals identify the stakeholders involved in the project and encourage collaboration across the USDA agencies and with appropriate federal agencies.; Encourage use of web based tools, e.g. Basecamp, that allow multiple users to manage and track projects (or ideas) and/or work from a USDA research project extranet; and Encourage the use of resources such as Google Documents that allow for the creation and sharing of online documents, spreadsheets and presentations in realtime. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA also suggest that USDA agricultural and food research, education and extension programs be organized into an investment portfolio which will help ensure consistent and predictable annual budget allocations. We suggest that the portfolio include: Capacity funding base funding to support personnel, facilities, and equipment that are essential to ensure the other funding priorities; Maintenance funding funding for integrated projects which include research, teaching, and extension which will ensure the deliverables that are required to continue to serve the public good e.g. plant breeding, resource assessment, and land management;

4 Knowledge acquisition basic research in all the agronomic, crop, and soil sciences to develop new innovations that will mitigate critical issues listed in #1; Safety net research as needed research on outbreaks, diseases, etc; and High risk research high potential for failure but a high potential payment for success. 3. How might USDA better coordinate agricultural sciences among its various agencies and with its partners? The USDA leadership needs to redefine the roles and missions of the agencies. This in turn will help to add focus and value to each type of activity taking place within USDA. The leadership should encourage better collaboration among ARS, Forest Service, NRCS, the NIFA agencies, the land grant universities, industry and all end users. While many mechanisms are available to enhance this collaboration, especially in this age of information technology (using online desktops, real time file sharing, etc.), the existing model of collocating scientists together at universities or other facilities should continue. The Department should assign blue ribbon panels that cut across all USDA agencies to identify what science is done, what can be used by industry/public stakeholders, what needs to be further developed, and brainstorm ideas for RFPs that will help solicit innovative applications. The blue ribbon interagency panels workgroups could provide a template that would foster cooperation on topics of broad interest within USDA, while also identifying linkages with other agencies. Advancement in online communications has revolutionized the way that governments and businesses communicate and operate. Complementary actions may include the following: Development of a web portal where multi disciplinary/regional science projects can be managed online and project documents are available and can be managed by multiple users in real time; Incorporate new technologies into grants, internal procedures, etc. which can be used to facilitate better coordination and communication with Primary Investigators and staff on multi disciplinary/integrated projects; and Require Land grants universities and federal agencies to include outreach about results of their research to regional coordination teams. These coordination teams would provide USDA administrators with one page (front and back) briefers for web publishing on the research and associated deliverables to address the critical issues listed in #1.

5 One approach that ASA, CSSA, and SSSA found particularly effective is the Management Systems Evaluation Area water quality projects which were initiated in These projects reached across USDA agencies and incorporated the needs of stakeholders, with research and extension performed by ARS and Land grant scientists and staff. This example demonstrates how collaboration among public stakeholders, industry, and federal researchers can be a strong element leading to success in a project. These sort of arrangements need to be fostered within USDA through formal arrangements (regional workgroups, etc.) that establish opportunities for interdisciplinary research planning, development, implementation, and execution. 4. What are some examples where agricultural science is successfully coordinated for maximum benefits? Why are they successful? ASA, CSSA, and SSSA find that regional research projects funded under Hatch or other mechanisms were some of the most successful research projects. We suggest that renewed efforts be put forth to establish regional projects that address the critical issues identified. USDA funding for maintenance, knowledge acquisition, safety net research and (when appropriate) high risk investments should have an application that includes input from the enduser be it industry, farmers, co ops, etc. from the onset of the project. Stakeholders, scientists, and funding partners have something to gain from success of the project. By including them in project development from the beginning, the PIs show that they value early input, and encourage a natural process of compromise and consensus building. In the end this sort of vested interest helps to keep the project on task, and more clearly identifies the goals of each stakeholder to add balance to the project objectives. Successful inclusive regional projects: Management Systems Evaluation Areas (MSEA) project which was conducted across the Midwest with linkages among universities, ARS, USGS, EPA, and commodity groups. The MSEA project was a success because of the coordinated interactions among the agencies and the scientists within the agencies. This was a multi location, multiinvestigator project that investigated the impact of farming systems on water quality. The goals of the project were developed and then coordinated across the overall project through teams that addressed each critical component of the project. Monthly teleconferences were held on each aspect with quarterly meetings of the

6 team leads and annual meetings of the investigators which ensured that the investigators were progressing towards the goals. This project also sponsored several scientific forums to share results. Over the course of a 5 year period this project produced over 650 different reports and developed a foundation for a very detailed understanding of how farming systems impacted water quality. The success of this program was due to the coordination across agencies and investigators and the continual sharing of results and ideas to address the project goal. Results from some of these projects led to cost sharing programs to help producers improve their management of irrigation water and nitrogen fertilization. NEBRASKA CASE EXAMPLE: o Nationally, EPA complemented the project in Nebraska by supporting a threeyear effort to evaluate technologies for variable rate N fertilizer recommendations. o Also in Nebraska, the consortium Resource21 (consisting of Boeing, Pioneer HiBred, Farmland Industries, General Dynamics, and Agrium) partnered with MSEA to expand the study locations, contributing > $1 million over 5 years and adding four study locations. The result was the development of a variable rate N system which uses the crop as a biological indicator of crop vigor and only applied supplemental N fertilizer when needed. The technology has been patented and will be marketed by AgLeader in o The Resource21 effort is a prime example including the enduser from the start of a project. In Resource 21 each of the aforementioned stakeholders had a vested interest in seeing development of the following deliverables: Boeing was going to build satellites; Pioneer Hi Bred wanted to learn about the extent of hail and frost damage to crops; Farmland Industries wanted to distribute information to farmers; General Dynamics wanted to interpret the data; Agrium wanted to sell fertilizer to producers GraceNet o GraceNet is a successful project because of the coordination among locations toward a common goal. There are common objectives and recommended protocols for the experimental approaches that are being used by the investigators with only a minimum amount of additional resources to complement the base funding at each location. What makes this project a

7 success is the willingness of each investigator to be part of a larger study to evaluate practices across sites. Mid continent Intensive Experiment o This project is part of the North American Carbon Program. The project being conducted in this experiment represents an effort across locations and agencies to understand the dynamics of carbon exchange in agricultural systems. The success is due to the desire to address the common goal of understanding the dynamics of agricultural ecosystems in the Midwest in terms of carbon exchanges. The common attribute of these studies that made them a success is the development of an infrastructure that kept the overall goal as a focus of the study and worked with each group to maintain this focus. 5. What are some examples where agricultural sciences are not coordinated effectively? Why is coordination lacking? What are the barriers? Great care must be taken in the future to avoid lack of coordination and the development of barriers in order to maximize the impact of resources. Many of the agencies developing/funding the fundamental science see on the ground applications of new technologies as coming from industry or some other agency. For example, while NSF/USDA has national genomics databases, there are no similar national phenotypic databases to manipulate/archive the available phenotypic data. Also, though there have been national needs educational programs, historically they have focused on fundamental science and only now are beginning to support translational efforts. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA strongly recommend that the actions of USDA complement that of other federal agencies and vice versa. Within USDA, the value of having the different agencies coordinated is that they all come from different perspectives. Both ARS and CSREES (soon to be NIFA) scientists are experienced working with farmers, but could benefit from advanced training on how to implement participatory research. Often scientists lack an appreciation for or understanding of a producer s innovative capacities and perspectives. Because they are coming from a very different training, scientists often proceed to develop a model or a proposal of what they think the user needs, without truly consulting and performing trials that include the enduser. We suggest that from the beginning, the enduser be included in the development process, and that scientists be trained in using iterative trials to test adoption patterns; these trials should be performed with the assistance of

8 social/extension scientists trained in participatory research. Such training will allow for the producer to have a greater vested interest in the project, resulting in a product that may be more valuable and widely adopted. While many of our members mentioned that MSEA projects were generally very successful endeavors, they were critical of the failure of the scientific and business communities to correctly assess the value of these new technologies to producers and for producers to incorporate them easily into farm operations. Therefore, having groups such as farmer co ops involved is very valuable to achieve adoption of new technologies. Endusers often value economic returns over all other considerations. For example, the adoption of Roundup Ready Soybean, where Roundup Ready Soybean production went from zero to 90% in three years, shows how cost mitigation drives most decisions. 6. What else might USDA do to improve coordination of science, enhance USDA s ability to identify issues and prioritize investments and elevate its role in science implementation and coordination? The U.S. would benefit from cooperating with other countries on new technologies developed and commercialized or technologies that are under development. ASA, CSSA, SSSA members find that there is much to learn from exchange with international scientists. However funding constraints have made it difficult for both international and US scientists to attend conferences, workshops, etc. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA believe exposure of scientists to different cultural practices, soils, climates, and societal concerns would help to refine application of new technologies. We suggest that CRIS projects include foreign trip reports similar to those required by ARS scientists. Finally, we suggest that USDA cooperate and work with the CGIAR centers and similar organizations that have global responsibilities. Our members support greater opportunities for partnership to develop between industry/end users and USDA research agencies. Development of these partnerships can come from group mentoring and facilitated networking events. For example, several decades ago ARS paid for a group of senior scientists to visit research locations to discuss objectives and approaches with scientists. Such facilitated mentoring events could be one of the responsibilities of the regional panels that are developed to address critical issues.. If these meetings included stakeholder representatives involved in industry R&D, and research savvy end users, stronger collaborations could form. This would allow young scientists, who have not yet been exposed to the network of

9 contacts, the opportunity to begin to develop a network and explore implementation of their ideas, increasing their likelihood of success. Past federal investment in the agronomic, crop, and soil sciences has resulted in the acquisition of knowledge and development of tools essential to address the many challenges facing agriculture. Today, the agricultural sciences must provide answers which will help the nation develop climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, sustainably produce renewable energy (biofuels), ensure domestic and international food security, protect the air, water and soil resources and develop a qualified workforce. However, when compared to the public (and private) investments in human health, the investment in agricultural sciences is extraordinarily low. We need to work together, showcasing agricultural science as a credible and valuable science so that we can work towards greater allocations in the future. Thank you for providing the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America the opportunity to provide input as the USDA develops the Roadmap for its research agencies. We hope you will call on our membership and scientific expertise whenever the need arises. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of our requests. For additional information or to learn more about the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America (ASA CSSA SSSA), please visit or or contact ASA CSSA SSSA Director of Science Policy Karl Glasener (kglasener@agronomy.org, kglasener@crops.org, or kglasener@soils.org) or Sincerely, Karl Glasener Director of Science Policy American Society of Agronomy Crop Science Society of America Soil Science Society of America 900 2nd St., Ste. 205 Washington, DC Phone: Cell: Fax: kglasener@agronomy.org; kglasener@soils.org; Kglasener@crops.org

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