Science Policy Report

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

02 September 2020

In This Issue:

Policy News

Science and Society News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Policy News

To counter the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the research community, ASA, CSSA, and SSSA have partnered with dozens of other professional societies to organize a Research Relief Advocacy campaign on September 8-10. Both the House and Senate have introduced the RISE Act (H.R. 7308, S. 4286), bipartisan legislation authorizing billions in emergency funding to U.S. researchers who have been impacted by the pandemic. This funding will support and maintain the research workforce, mitigate the disruptions to federally-supported research and core research facilities, and restart research that has been halted or slowed due to COVID-19. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA are urging Society members to to contact their congressional delegation to encourage passage of the RISE Act. Join thousands of other scientists by emailing or tweeting Congress on September 8-10. Learn more here.

In another effort to remove barriers to innovation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a rule that will streamline the regulation of certain plant-incorporated protectants (PIPs) that pose no risks of concern to humans or the environment. This action – which will be available for public comment for 60 days – delivers on a  key directive under President Trump’s Executive Order on Modernizing the Regulatory Framework for Agricultural Biotechnology Products. Read the full article. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation announced today they are establishing seven new artificial intelligence institutes across the country to accelerate research, expand America's workforce and transform society for the future. Advancements in AI research have broad applications that can create economic, health and safety benefits across multiple industries and all levels of education. This national network of Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes represents the nation's most significant federal investment in AI research and workforce development to date. The $20 million investment in each of five NSF AI institutes and two USDA-NIFA AI Institutes is just the beginning, with more institute announcements anticipated in the coming years. Read the full article. 

On August 25, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the selection of recipients for about $4.1 million in grants and cooperative agreements through its new Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production. These are the first-ever recipients of these grants and cooperative agreements. 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 thousands of scientists, professionals, educators, and students from around the world at our virtual Annual Meeting. The virtual Annual Meeting provides presenters and attendees with unique opportunities! We will run through a condensed overview of the experience, show you an attendee's perspective, and answer any questions you might have regarding the virtual experience.  Can't attend?...watch the recording at a time that’s convenient for you! Thursday, September 3, 10:00-10:30 am, central time. Register Here. 

Support your sciences and reach qualified applicants! 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. Visit our careers page to browse and post positions. Read the full story. 

Written by ASA, CSSA, SSSA staff Beth Jacques, this policy brief argues that broadband access has become an essential utility for people around the globe and that the Alliance of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Science Societies (ACSESS) needs to be at the forefront of the movement to expand broadband access to rural America.Read the full brief. 

Invite a colleague to join our societies and gain a broader understanding of how membership will benefit their career. ASA and SSSA offer free trial memberships that provides an in-depth look our associated benefits, without the up-front commitment of member dues. The Trial Memberships, give the opportunity to take a tour, become familiar with ASA, SSSA, our members, and our benefits.  Help us grow our scientific community and spread the word by sharing these links to future members for details! Read the full story at agronomy.org or soils.org. 

Sports scientists study how athletes perform during exercise and how that affects the body. Turfgrass scientists study how to improve and maintain the health of turfgrass. But what happens when you combine the two? Dr. Chase Straw’s review paper decided to find out, searching out research that combines both fields to better understand athlete biomechanics, physiology and perceptions, performance, and injuries. Field, Lab, Earth is the podcast all about past and present advances in the fields of agronomic, crop, soil, and environmental sciences. A joint production of the Tri-Societies, the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, it features interviews with authors published in our journals, books, and magazines. Read the full story. 

Biotechnology is a fascinating subject – there is no shortage of interesting topics or laboratory experiments to pique students’ interest. Agriculture, for example, offers a huge range of interesting and important challenges that biotechnology is poised to address, from crops that resist drought and disease to livestock with a smaller environmental footprint. But agricultural biotechnology is systematically and institutionally excluded from most biology and biotechnology curricula, locking out urban and suburban students and the under-represented students more likely to live in these areas. Read the full comments. 

A recently funded Texas A&M AgriLife study will determine differences in nitrogen requirements between Brahman-type cattle and other cattle. According to the announcement, measuring these differences may allow cattle producers to reduce the protein in cattle diets by allowing for precise diet formulations. Read the full article. 

Mexico will gradually phase out use of the herbicide glyphosate by the time the current administration ends in late 2024, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday, following a ministerial spat over the product. Acknowledging differences between his agriculture and environment ministries over the herbicide, which is used in brands such as Roundup, Lopez Obrador said the government would immediately stop using glyphosate on its own projects. Read the full article. 

Monarch Watch said the results of the study support calls by scientists and conservations to restore more than a billion milkweed stems in the Upper Midwest. A 2017 study from the United States Geological Survey said that over 860 million milkweed stems were lost in the northern US over the past decade and that nearly two billion additional sets of milkweed would be needed for the Eastern migratory population of the monarch butterfly to rebound to a sustainable level. Read the full article. 

University researchers are seeking approval to restore the iconic chestnut to American forests by using a genetically engineered (GE) variety that can tolerate the blight that has killed billions of wild trees. If the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) accepts the deregulation petition, the blight-tolerant chestnut would be the first GE tree approved for environmental conservation use in the US. Read the full article.

Scientists say the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half by mid-century to avert catastrophic effects from global warming. Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent greenhouse gas; the amount in the atmosphere has been rising as humans burn fossil fuels. Not only must the world stop releasing more carbon, some CO2 already in the air also must be removed, experts say. That’s where the prairie comes in. Read the full article.

A new analysis of cannabis research funding in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has found that $1.56 billion was directed to the topic between 2000 and 2018—with about half of the money spent on understanding the potential harms of the recreational drug. Just over $1 billion came from the biggest funder, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which doled out far more money to research cannabis misuse and its negative effects than on using cannabis and cannabis-derived chemicals as a therapeutic drug. Read the full article. 

International Corner

Restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have prompted a revival of locally produced food in Africa. As border closures make imported foods more expensive and harder to get, and political leaders rally support for the local agricultural economy, African consumers are showing renewed interest in local foods. Read the full article. 

Africa’s cotton farmers are struggling to recoup their investments because they lack access to quality seeds that can increase yields and profits. In an effort to help its farmers increase yields, the Nigerian government recently approved the commercial release of two of its homegrown Bt cotton hybrids. It has also approved the cultivation of Bt cowpea, a staple crop that is an important source of protein for many West Africans. With its massive population of over 200 million people, many African countries look to Nigeria for leadership. Experts have postulated that Nigeria’s success in adopting two genetically modified (GM) crops will open up the entire African continent to accepting agricultural biotechnology. Read the full article. 

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

The GCSAA Research Grant Program is dedicated to funding applied agronomic, environmental and regulatory research that will benefit golf course superintendents and the golf courses they manage. Deadline: September 15. Read the full announcement.

In the years since its creation in 2004, the Mosaic Company has become a global leader in the supply of phosphates and potash for crop nutrition. The company currently is inviting applications in support of three core areas — food, water, and local investment — in communities where it has facilities, offices, and key stakeholder agreements. Deadline: September 25. Read the full announcement. 

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is soliciting proposals for the annual Restoration and Stewardship of Outdoor Resources and Environment (RESTORE) Colorado Program. Grants made through the RESTORE Colorado Program will focus on the restoration, enhancement and expansion of wildlife habitat throughout the state. Deadline: October 29. Read the full announcement. 

Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers facilitate the growth of crops, including corn, at yields that provide sustained global food production. However, fertilizers applied without consideration of the appropriate rate, timing, source, and method, can have harmful effects on the environment and human health. “Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer” (EEF) is a term for new formulations that control fertilizer release or alter reactions that reduce nutrient losses to the environment. EEFs and other next generation product technology innovations may be an important addition to a system of conservation practices that help reduce the impacts from row crop agriculture on the environment, while maintaining or increasing agricultural productivity and profitability. To help mitigate these adverse effects, EPA is partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to launch the Joint EPA-USDA Partnership and Competition on Next Gen Fertilizers to Advance Agricultural Sustainability in the United States. Along with EPA and USDA, the competition is in collaboration with The Fertilizer Institute (TFI), the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). The Environmental and Agronomic Challenge aims to identify existing EEFs currently on or near-market that meet or exceed certain environmental and agro-economic criteria. Challenge end date: October 30. The Next Gen Fertilizer Innovations Challenge aims to identify concepts for novel technologies for fertilizers and other product technology innovations that can reduce the environmental effects from modern agriculture while maintaining or increasing crop yields. Challenge end date: November 30. Read the full announcement. 

The Rapid Outcomes from Agricultural Research (ROAR) program provides nimble deployment of funds to support research and outreach in response to emerging or unanticipated threats to the nation’s food supply or agricultural systems. ROAR participants may apply for funds in response to an outbreak for development of diagnostics, monitoring and mitigation strategies. The ROAR program fills the gap until traditional, longer-term funding sources can be secured. Up to $150,000 per one-year grant is available from FFAR, with the requirement that recipients provide equal or greater matching funds from non-U.S. federal sources. Please see here for more information about matching funds. Industry participation and/or funding is strongly encouraged. Deadline: Ongoing opportunity. Read the full announcement. 

The Wolcott Family Foundation supports nonprofit grassroots organizations in Colorado that address social change and environmental stewardship. The Foundation's focus is on projects that emphasize environmental preservation, advocacy, and community involvement aimed at root causes of societal problems. Priority is given to organizations that empower individuals and communities to organize for social change; seek to strengthen civil liberties and civil rights issues; build community development that seeks to break the cycle of poverty, create economic opportunity, and build effective leadership in distressed communities; and demonstrate linkages and interdependence of ecosystems and economics with win-win solutions and collaborative approaches. Deadline: September 4. Read the full announcement.

New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets Description The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets has announced that the Dairy Promotion Order (DPO) Advisory Board has issued a Requests for Proposals (RFP) for dairy promotion projects, as part of its $15 million checkoff fund. The RFP solicits proposals for projects that market and promote New York-produced fluid milk and dairy products with the goal of increasing consumer demand for and consumption of New York’s many dairy products. Eligible applicants include non-profit entities, research institutions, and private businesses that are not affiliated with the DPO Advisory Board. Project proposals may not promote a specific brand or trade name. Deadline: September 7. Read the full announcement.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Service Agency (FSA), requests applications for the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program (NOCCSP) and the Agricultural Management Assistance (AMA) Organic Certification Cost Share Program, collectively referred to as the OCCSP, for fiscal year (FY) 2020. The purpose of the OCCSP awards is to defray the costs of receiving and maintaining organic certification. In FY 2020, available funding is approximately $931,000 for the AMA. FSA awards the OCCSP funds to eligible State Agencies* that serve as administering entities, to reimburse organic operations for specific organic certification costs. Deadline: September 9. Read the full announcement.

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) encourages the submission of proposals for planning grants for Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) that transform the results of cutting-edge, use-inspired/purpose-driven, fundamental research on the dynamics of Earth processes into concepts and research products of collective interest to entities in the private sector, utilities, state and local governments, federal agencies and national labs, regulators, nonprofits, and other interested parties. The NSF IUCRC Program is a nationally recognized vehicle that increases funding to institutions of higher education, their faculty, and students. Deadline: September 16, 2020 and March 10, 2021. Read the full announcement.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is soliciting proposals for projects that conserve, restore and improve habitat in the Intermountain West. The objective of the Rocky Mountain Rangelands Program (RMR) is to work in focal landscapes in the region to restore and conserve wildlife species associated with sagebrush, irrigated meadows and aquatic systems while conserving the phenomenon of large mammal migration. Competitive proposals submitted under this RFP will support strategic projects that accelerate and implement priority conservation practices as identified in the RMR business plan. Deadline: October 13. Read the full announcement.

The USDA SBIR program focuses on transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial potential and/or societal benefit. Unlike fundamental research, the USDA SBIR program supports small businesses in the creation of innovative, disruptive technologies and enables the application of research advancements from conception into the market. 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. The 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: October 22. Read the full announcement. 

The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) promotes coordination of NRCS conservation activities with partners that offer value-added contributions to expand our collective ability to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns. Through RCPP, NRCS seeks to co-invest with partners to implement projects that demonstrate innovative solutions to conservation challenges and provide measurable improvements and outcomes tied to the resource concerns they seek to address. Deadline: November 4. Read the full announcement. 

The Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program announces the Call for Proposals for Professional + Producer Research and Education Grants for 2021. With a Professional + Producer Research and Education Grant, an Agricultural Professional and five (5) Producers work together to develop a proposal to conduct both research and outreach on a sustainable agriculture topic. Outreach activities may include onfarm/ranch demonstrations, farmer-to-farmer educational activities, and other approaches to assist producer adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. The goal of this program is to achieve results that can be communicated to producers and professionals; sustain and improve the environmental quality and natural resource base on which agriculture depends; improve the profitability of farmers/ranchers and associated agricultural businesses; and enhance the quality of life for farmers/ranchers in local communities. Deadline: November 4. Read the full announcement. 

The SCGSR program supports supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students to conduct part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE national laboratory/facility in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist for a period of 3 to 12 consecutive months—with the goal of preparing graduate students for scientific and technical careers critically important to the DOE Office of Science mission.  The Office of Science expects to make approximately 95 awards in 2020 Solicitation 2 cycle, for project periods beginning anytime between June 14, 2021 and October 4, 2021. Deadline: November 12. Read the full announcement.

The multi-agency Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases program supports research on the ecological, evolutionary, and social drivers that influence the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. The central theme of submitted projects must be the quantitative or computational understanding of pathogen transmission dynamics. The intent is discovery of principles of infectious disease transmission and testing mathematical or computational models that elucidate infectious disease systems. Deadline: November 18. Read the full announcement.

The Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (Western SARE) program announces the Call for Proposals for the 2021 Western SARE Sabbatical Grants. Western SARE Sabbatical Grants provide an opportunity for faculty around the world to partner with farmers, ranchers, agricultural professionals, and researchers of the Western U.S. region for conducting research, education, and Extension activities. Projects focused on unexplored topics in underserved communities and understudied geographic locations are of special interest. Grants cannot exceed $75,000 over the entire budget period, are limited to one year, and cannot be renewed or extended.

Deadline: January 11, 2021. Read the full announcement. 

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). In this context, many events will be organised to raise awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development. In order to give visibility to national and international research activities on plant health and to the people and organizations that carry them, the Euphresco network for phytosanitary research coordination and funding (Euphresco) and the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies of Bari (CIHEAM Bari) are pleased to launch a call for a video competition ‘Plant Health TV: Research that helps Plant Health’. Deadline: February 1, 2021. Read the full announcement.

Sources: EPA, USDA, feedstuffs.com, U.S. News & World Report, Cornell Alliance for Science, Washington Post, Science Magazine

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.