Agriculture Innovation
USDA Agriculture Innovation Agenda
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched the Agriculture Innovation Agenda, a department-wide effort to align research goals with new, innovative ideas for transformative products to increase production by 40 percent while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half by 2050. Read the full whitepaper on the USDA Agriculture Innovation Agenda here.
Rather than subsidizing individual ideas, USDA plans to invest in four Innovation Areas, which are based on strategies published in the National Academies of Sciences Report, “Science Breakthroughs 2030.” But what kinds of ideas are the most promising? And which Innovation Area is the most important for developing those ideas?
Process
ASA, CSSA, and SSSA members and Certified Crop Advisors (CCAs) were surveyed to identify the most promising goal, objective, opportunity, or commercial product that could increase agricultural productivity and/or reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture. The survey results were used to develop the initial comments from ASA, CSSA, and SSSA.
ASA, CSSA, and SSSA took this opportunity to establish a Task Force with other scientific societies with the goal of developing joint comments that would broadly represent agricultural research stakeholders. The Task Force was composed of representatives from:
- American Society of Agronomy (ASA)
- Crop Science Society of America (CSSA)
- Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)
- Certified Crop Advisors (CCA)
- American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE)
- American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)
- Entomological Society of America (ESA)
- National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB)
Working together over several weeks in the summer of 2020, the Task Force worked with the Science Policy Office staff to write and submit a response to the RFI from USDA for its vision for the future of agriculture.
AIA Task Force Recommendations
USDA should embrace agriculture education, diversity and inclusion, economic policies that help farmers be flexible, and products that increase resilience and sustainability, like sensor systems and breeding toolkits.
ready-to-go technologies
In September, USDA followed up on the initial Ag Innovation Agenda RFI, requested suggestions on "ready to go" technologies and techniques that could help meet with AIA goals of increasing agricultural production, while also decreasing the environmental footprint of agriculture.
ASA, CSSA, and SSSA submitted recommendations which included promoting soil health practices, diverse cropping systems, non-commodity grain crops, incentivizing environmental stewardship, and requiring professional certification for all NRCA conservation planners.