Science Policy Report

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17 June 2015

In This Issue:

Policy News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Science News

Policy News

Over the past few weeks, multiple bills have moved forward in the House that could have major repercussions on NSF’s Geoscience Directorate. Both the COMPETES Act, NSF’s authorizing bill, and the House Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) Appropriations bill, include language that would direct NSF funding away from the Geoscience Directorate in order to prioritize funding at other directorates. SSSA, along with several other Geoscience groups, wrote a letter to the Senate CJS Appropriations Committee urging it to take a balanced approach to research funding at NSF. When the Senate’s CJS bill was released we were relieved to see that the Senate version does not stipulate how NSF funding should be divided at the directorate level. While it did not include the prescriptive funding language found in the House version, it did not explicitly prohibit directorate level funding, meaning that whether to include directorate level funding or not will be decided during the bill conference. The Senate bill provides NSF with $50 million less than its House counterpart, maintaining flat funding at $7.34 billion in FY2016. Read the full article.

The ASA, CSSA and SSSA Science Policy Offices is encouraging Society members to schedule a local meeting with their members of Congress during the month of August. Take this opportunity to tell Congress about the research being done in their home states and districts and begin relationships that will foster new champions for food, agriculture and natural resources research. Learn more about this exciting local advocacy opportunity and register to schedule a meeting here.

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) named Sally Rockey as its first executive director. Rockey is currently deputy director for extramural research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Rockey, who will assume her new role in September, spent 19 years at USDA, where she oversaw the competitive research component of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, which is today's National Institute for Food and Agriculture. Read the full article.

Congressman Bill Foster (D–IL) surprised some of his colleagues last week when he proposed killing a long-running program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) intended to lift up states at the bottom of the research funding heap. Although his amendment was defeated 232 to 195, the large number of “yeas” is the latest indication that the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) may need to do some serious soul-searching to remain viable. Foster says he’s fed up with less-populated states getting far more dollars back from the U.S. government than what they pay in taxes. Read the full article.

The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act that passed the House on Tuesday included a provision by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA.) that requires the FAA to take agricultural uses for drones into account when crafting rules for the technology. Read the full article.

Unilever NV, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other large companies reliant on agriculture agreed to encourage farmers who supply them to cut carbon pollution, the White House said, as President Obama pushes forward on initiatives to try to stem climate change. The announcement comes a day after Google Inc. and other companies committed to spend $34 million for a White House initiative to help developing countries better respond to climate-related disasters. In conjunction with the private-sector commitments, the Department of Agriculture said it would spend about $7 million on 550 renewable energy projects and upgrades at small farms and businesses in rural areas. Read the full article.

International Corner

About 3000 Russian scientists rallied in Moscow on Saturday to protest against government reforms of the research system and the imposition of competitive funding, which is not commonly used in the country. The main demand of the researchers was to revise the current reform of the Russian academic system, which has been going on since mid-2013. Read the full article.

UN climate talks ended with negotiators trimming a draft global climate pact but leaving core sticking points to be untangled later, before a December summit in Paris where the landmark agreement is to be adopted. Frustrated by the slow pace, some negotiators and observers called the Bonn meeting a squandered opportunity to capture the momentum of a declaration by seven world leaders including President Obama to move away from a dependence on fossil fuels. Read the full article.

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

The primary purpose of the Agricultural Risk Management Education program is to provide U.S. agricultural producers and their families, as appropriate, with the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to make informed risk management decisions that enhance profitability of their operations. In the four regions of the United States (Northeast, North Central, Southern and Western) one award will be made to one Regional Risk Management Education Center in each geographic area. In addition, a single award will be made to a Risk Management Education Electronic Support Center. Deadline, July 6. Read the full announcement.

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture has issued its Summer 2015 Request for Pre-proposals for Research and Project grants. For 2015, these two main categories are divided into 10 subject portals and there will be five specific focus areas described. The Center will give priority to pre-proposals whose outcomes contribute to increased resilience on Iowa landscapes and demonstrate a systems approach to the identified problem or situation rather than investigating single-tactic solutions. The Center will accept pre-proposals from investigators representing any Iowa nonprofit organization/agency and/or educational institution, including soil and water conservation districts, schools and colleges, and regional development groups. Farmers, landowners and farm-based businesses are invited to participate in the pre-proposal process but they must be associated with a nonprofit organization. Deadline, July 7. Read the full announcement.

The USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification at Kansas State University invites the submission of concept notes from eligible entities to compete for research sub-award projects.  Concept notes will be reviewed and may lead to an invitation to submit a full proposal. Research sub-award projects focused on the development and implementation of sustainable intensification practices in one or more of the target countries will be competitively selected.  Target regions include Asia, West Africa, and East Africa and within these regions there will be an emphasis in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Deadline, July 10. Read the full announcement.

Science News

California's drought is taking a multi-billion dollar toll on the state's agricultural industry. A new study found that in 2015 alone, the drought will cost the state's farmers industry $2.7 billion and more than 18,000 jobs, with 564,000 acres fallowed. And that's just for one year. Read the full article.

Ron Turco, a professor of agronomy at Purdue and SSSA member, is one of only two people with an Indiana Industrial Hemp license, which allows him to legally grow the crop for study in the state of Indiana. He applied for one soon after the state passed Senate Bill 357, or the Indiana Hemp Law, in 2014 and, shortly thereafter, helped create the Purdue Industrial Hemp Research Group. The group applied for their DEA research number in February and, when that’s settled, will then need to file for an import license. Once they navigate that last bureaucratic hurdle, Turco will finally be able to order hemp seed from a supplier in Canada. If he’s lucky this year, he’ll join a handful of scientists who are beginning the slow process of dusting off an old crop and figuring out how to get it back in rotation in America—both in the ground and in the market. Read the full article.

A half-dozen academic journals are investigating allegations that aerospace engineer Willie Wei-Hock Soon, a prominent skeptic of the idea that humans are contributing to global warming, failed to disclose financial ties to a fossil fuel company in papers they published. And the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is examining fresh allegations—made in a report released today by the advocacy group Climate Investigations Center (CIC)—that Soon failed to follow disclosure rules in submitting a letter to that journal. The group has also raised questions about whether Soon followed disclosure policies in publishing recent papers in several other journals, including Nature Geoscience. Read the full article.

The rapidly rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affect plants' absorption of nitrogen, which is the nutrient that restricts crop growth in most terrestrial ecosystems. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have now revealed that the concentration of nitrogen in plants' tissue is lower in air with high levels of carbon dioxide, regardless of whether or not the plants' growth is stimulated. Read the full article.

Family farms in the sunny Rogue Valley plan to celebrate this weekend as Jackson County's first-in-Oregon GMO ban takes effect. Saturday is the first day people can alert county officials about violations of the ban on growing genetically altered crops. But officials won't be patrolling or making farmers destroy their plants – and it's unclear if they ever will. More than a year after two-thirds of voters decided to oust GMOs, supporters and opponents alike are asking the same question: now what? Read the full article.

In the 1960s, the farmers of Egypt grew enough wheat to feed the country and export some to its neighbors. But as the country's population grew, its farmers couldn't keep up, and Egypt is now the world's largest importer of wheat. When international food prices spiked in 2008, there were bread riots in the streets of Cairo. Our guest Joel Bourne says Egypt's problems illustrate a terrifying fact facing all humanity - the world is running out of food. Read the full article.

From filling data gaps—such as identifying the causes of food loss—to helping farmers with weather or market updates, to providing government agencies with key information regarding crop diseases, open data holds the promise of providing many solutions to problems related to food systems. Here are seven main ways enthusiasts and specialists can help unleash the data revolution in the agriculture sector. Read the full article.

Some skeptics have argued that rising carbon dioxide levels could actually benefit agriculture. Research shows that rising temperatures and more carbon dioxide can be a boon to plants—up to a point. But that’s not the whole story, according to researcher Camilo Mora. And in a new paper, he and his colleagues attempt to set the record straight. Read the full article.

Sources: USDA; AAAS; ScienceInsider; Ag Professional; The Washington Post; NPR; Agri-Pulse; GovTech; Bloomberg; Science Daily; Devex; Oregon Live

Vision: The Societies Washington, DC Science Policy Office (SPO) will advocate the importance and value of the agronomic, crop and soil sciences in developing national science policy and ensuring the necessary public-sector investment in the continued health of the environment for the well being of humanity. The SPO will assimilate, interpret, and disseminate in a timely manner to Society members information about relevant agricultural, natural resources and environmental legislation, rules and regulations under consideration by Congress and the Administration.

This page of the ASA-CSSA-SSSA web site will highlight current news items relevant to Science Policy. It is not an endorsement of any position.