Science Policy Report

Address all comments to the Science Policy Office at:
sciencepolicy@sciencesocieties.org

15 April 2020

In This Issue:

Policy News

Science and Society News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Policy News

Congress is finally beginning to sketch the outlines of its next big coronavirus response. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it's clear the next tranche of relief funds should be an expansion of the massive $2 trillion “Phase 3” relief package — more money to aid states, cities and small businesses, expand unemployment benefits and another round of direct cash payments for Americans. A timeline for any legislative action remains uncertain. Congress is extending its recess until May 4 to avoid transmitting coronavirus and practice social distancing, decisions that mean the House and Senate will continue operating in skeleton form for at least three more weeks. Read the full article.

In the coming weeks, Congress plans to pursue another $1-2 trillion COVID-19 relief package. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA have been working with our partners to try and add researchers to the list of impacted industries. The research and university communities are asking Congress to include $26 billion in supplemental extramural research funds in the next relief package. These funds would be divided among the federal research agencies to provide additional support for graduate student, postdocs and research assistants and would help cover costs associated with restarting research activities. See letters outlining the needs of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy-Office of Science. A letter in support of supplemental funding for research at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture is in development. 

In December, President Trump announced that Dr. Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan would serve as the next Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), succeeding Dr. France Córdova when her six-year term as NSF Director ended in March. Although Panchanathan’s nomination is not controversial, due to shutdown impacts from the COVID-19 outbreak, there is no telling when the Senate will be able to approve his confirmation. To fill the leadership void, President Trump announced that Kelvin Droegemeier, who is currently the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), will be also serve as the Acting Director of NSF. Read the full article.

Science and Society News

The American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America will host approximately 4,000 scientists, professionals, educators, and students at the 2020 International Annual Meeting, "Translating Visionary Science to Practice," on November 8-11, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona. We invite you to submit your abstract and help create solutions to advance science. Visit our meetings page for our latest updates.

Amol Pohane—a postdoc at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst – is just one of many scientists who have been affected by university closures. For some, the shutdowns have made it more challenging for them to complete their work. But for others, they come at a critical juncture in the scientist’s career, threatening to derail or delay a major event along their professional path—a small slice of the human suffering and inconvenience that COVID-19 has caused. The disruptions are going to shake up the careers of researchers at all seniority levels, but they’ll likely have the greatest impact on early-career scientists. Read the full article.

On Thursday, April 16 from 2-3 pm Central time, NIFA will host a webinar for our Land Grant University and other science partners to clarify answers to frequently asked questions about how the current situation caused by COVID-19 will affect NIFA programs. Send any questions that you have, in advance, to my Chief of Staff, Bill Hoffman. Please register if you would like to attend.

Regenerative agriculture consists of farming practices that enhance the health of agricultural soil—the soil that grows crops in our food system. Soil composition and health can be altered by environmental stressors including harsh climate conditions, physical disturbances and chemical contaminants. But the overall health of soil depends largely on its carbon concentration. Because carbon is a primary component of agricultural soil, careful carbon management is one of the most important aspects of growing sustainable plants in our food system. Here let’s take a deeper dive into our agricultural soil and look at the “little guys”—including worms, bacteria, and viruses—that support carbon sequestration and soil health. As we’ll see, these tiny helpers work right alongside farmers to bring us healthy and renewable crops each year. Read the full article.

ASA, CSSA, and SSSA are doing our part to support our members and colleagues and we want to help to help with your continued hiring needs. We are offering these Promo Codes through May. SUPPORT30 - Save 30% on all 30, 60, and 90 day posts.  ASSIST - Assistantship and Internship posts are FREE. The Science Societies Career Center is the premier career resource for our sciences. The Career Center promotes and encourages opportunities in the agronomic, crop, soil, and environmental sciences and serves as a clearinghouse for resumes and job listings. Employers and recruiters will find the most qualified talent pool with relevant work experience to fulfill their staffing needs. Find the next member of your team! 

Wheat scab hits farmers with a double punch. The fungal disease, also known as Fusarium head blight, shrivels grain and can significantly dent harvests of wheat and barley. Worse, the toxins released by the fungus Fusarium graminearum, a growing problem in the breadbaskets of Europe, North America, and China, remain in grain intended for food. Above legal limits, they can harm people and animals. Grain from infected plants must be discarded in many countries, although some allow blending with uninfected grain. Fungicides are no panacea, in part because the pathogen infects during wet weather, when the chemicals wash away. But researchers have now found a protective gene in a wild relative called wheatgrass. Read the full article.

University of Illinois’ Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering Girish Chowdhary and his research in field robotics continue to make headlines. Chowdhary’s work in field robotics is focused on addressing the labor crisis in agriculture. His group is developing novel robots and advanced AI for autonomous coordinated operation in agricultural fields. The TerraSentia robot is designed to automate the labor-intensive process of collecting data to improve crop breeding. The robot automates the measurement of crop phenotypes such as plant height, stem diameter, leaf-area index, and plant count. Read the full article.

Our Online Classroom is here for you if you are staying at home due to COVID-19 and can help you continue to achieve your professional development goals in 2020. A subscription to the live webinar and Online Classroom gives you unlimited access to numerous educational resources for one full year. It provides a low cost, easy way to earn CEUs on a diverse array of topics that impact your daily work in the field and in the office. Explore features and pricing and to sign up for this service.

You are invited to participate an upcoming webinar that will discuss changes to ARPA-E’s Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled SMARTFARM - Systems for Monitoring and Analytics for Renewable Transportation Fuels from Agricultural Resources and Management. ARPA-E will host a live webinar on April 28, 2020 at 1:00 PM EDT to provide an overview of SMARTFARM and answer your questions. To register to participate in the webinar, simply reply to this invitation and we will send an Outlook invitation. 

International Corner

The iconic wildlife of the African savanna—zebras, gazelles, and other grazers—has for decades been under pressure from some unnatural rivals. Ranchers’ cattle compete with local wildlife for food and water, and they starve much of the soil of nutrients. But a new study suggests wildlife and cattle can coexist—if elephants remain to help distribute nutrients into the soil, via their poop and their habit of knocking over trees. Cattle ranching, which has been intensifying across the savanna, can lead to overgrazing, eroding and impoverishing the soil and helping shrubs invade the grasslands. To investigate the ecological effects of ranching—and the role of elephants in the ecosystem—scientists launched a long-term experiment in 1995 at the Mpala Research Centre in central Kenya. Read the full article.

A plant virologist who developed virus-resistant super-seeds managed to take them with her when escaping violent conflict in her native Syria. In response to climate-related viruses spreading in Syria and surrounding countries, Dr. Safaa Kumari spent 10 years working on a virus-resistant seed to protect fava beans, a prime protein source for many in the region. Dr. Kumari is working to distribute the seeds for free to local farmers. Read the full article.

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

The DOE SC program in Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) hereby announces its interest in making research data and artificial intelligence (AI) models findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR1) to facilitate the development of new AI applications in SC’s congressionally authorized mission space, which includes the advancement of AI research and development. In particular, ASCR is interested in supporting FAIR benchmark data for AI; and FAIR frameworks for relating data and AI models. For this FOA, AI is inclusive of, for example, machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), neural networks (NN), computer vision, and natural language processing (NLP). Data, in this context, are the digital artifacts used to generate AI models and/or employed in combination with AI models during inference. An AI model is an inference method that can be used to perform a “task,” such as prediction, diagnosis, or classification. The model is developed using training data or other knowledge. An AI task is the inference activity performed by an artificially intelligent system. Letter of intent deadline, April 17. Read the full announcement.

The Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SSARE) program will be releasing a special Grant Call in 2020 seeking Systems Research Project proposals for sustainable agriculture research that focus on a Systems Research approach. Most agricultural field research is component research – analyzing a part of a system in isolation to the other system’s components to seek a solution to one problem. While good information has been gained from well-conducted component research, one of the shortcomings of a component view is that sometimes a solution to a problem creates new problems to be solved. As researchers dig deeper into the impacts of component research on other parts of the system – either because the research drives it or society demands it – the research agenda is becoming more complex. With this complexity in mind, we are finding that systems research is becoming more important to addressing the questions and finding the methods needed for a more balanced, long-term sustainable agricultural system. Systems research provides the opportunity to probe the interrelationships of all parts of a system in a long-term environment to answer questions related to profitability, environmental stewardship and community quality of life as the system changes over a long period of time. Letter of intent deadline, May 1. Read the full announcement.

The goals of NSF’s convergence accelerator effort are to support and accelerate use-inspired convergence research in areas of national importance within particular topics (tracks). NSF Convergence Accelerator tracks can be related to Industries of the Future (IotF), NSF’s Big Ideas , or other topics, that may not relate directly to an IotF or Big Idea, however, they must have the potential for significant national impact. The 2020 NSF Convergence Accelerator is a two-phase program. Both phases are described in this solicitation. Phase I awardees receive significant resources to further develop their convergence research ideas and identify crucial partnerships and resources to accelerate their projects, leading to deliverable research prototypes in Phase II. This solicitation invites proposals for the following Tracks: (Track C) Quantum Technology and (Track D) AI-Driven Innovation via Data and Model Sharing. Preliminary proposal deadline, May 11. Read the full announcement

Funds may be awarded up to $100,000 for a Phase I project. Proposed Phase I projects should prove the scientific or technical feasibility of the approach or concept. Projects dealing with agriculturally related manufacturing and alternative and renewable energy technologies are encouraged across all SBIR topic areas. USDA SBIR's flexible research areas ensure innovative projects consistent with USDA's vision of a healthy and productive nation in harmony with the land, air, and water. USDA SBIR Program has awarded over 2000 research and development projects since 1983, allowing hundreds of small businesses to explore their technological potential, and providing an incentive to profit from the commercialization of innovative ideas. Deadline May 21. Read the full announcement.

The Methyl Bromide Transition Program (MBT) addresses the immediate needs and the costs of transition that have resulted from the phase-out of the pesticide methyl bromide. Methyl bromide has been a pest and disease control tactic critical to pest management systems for decades for soilborne and postharvest pests. The program focuses on integrated commercial-scale research on methyl bromide alternatives and associated extension activity that will foster the adoption of these solutions. Projects should cover a broad range of new methodologies, technologies, systems, and strategies for controlling economically important pests for which methyl bromide has been the only effective pest control option. Research projects must address commodities with critical issues and include a focused economic analysis of the cost of implementing the transition on a commercial scale.
Deadline May 22. Read the full announcement.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is announcing availability of Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies. Proposals will be accepted from the following several states. See the links for full announcement details and deadlines. 
New Mexico – Deadline May 23
Connecticut – Deadline May 29
Kansas – Deadline May 31
Missouri – Deadline June 2
Vermont – Deadline June 6
Pacific Islands Area – Deadline June 8
South Dakota – Deadline June 9
Rhode Island – Deadline June 10
Massachusetts – Deadline June 13
Pennsylvania – Deadline June 15
New York – Deadline July 3
 

The Hydrologic Sciences Program supports basic research on the fluxes of water in the terrestrial environment that constitute the water cycle as well as the mass and energy transport function of the water cycle. The Program supports the study of processes including (but not limited to): rainfall, runoff, infiltration and streamflow; evaporation and transpiration; the flow of water in soils and aquifers; and the transport of suspended, dissolved, and colloidal components. The Program is interested in how water interacts with the landscape and the ecosystem as well as how the water cycle and its coupled processes are altered by land use and climate. Studies may address physical, chemical, and/or biological processes that are coupled directly to water transport. Observational, experimental, theoretical, modeling, synthesis and field approaches are supported. Projects submitted to Hydrologic Sciences commonly involve expertise from physical and ecosystem sciences, engineering and/or mathematics; and proposals may require joint review with related programs. Proposals accepted at any time. Read the full announcement.

Sources: Politico; ScienceInsider; NSF; Food Insight; University of Illinois News; The Guardian; USDA; NRCS; DOE-SC

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.