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13 October 2021

In This Issue:

Policy News

Science and Society News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Policy News

After a weeks long standoff between Democrats and Republicans, Congress came to a short term agreement to raise the country’s debt ceiling into early December. The resolution would end a tense few weeks of partisan warfare, during which Democrats tried repeatedly to suspend the country’s debt ceiling into 2022 — only to falter at the hands of GOP objections. McConnell led the blockade as part of the party’s broader campaign against Biden’s spending agenda, including a still-forming package of up to $3.5 trillion in spending that GOP lawmakers vehemently oppose. But the short-term deal also threatens to defer a bigger, more vicious battle between Democrats and Republicans until the final days of the year. Read the full article.
 

The in-house watchdog at the National Science Foundation says her office is unable to keep up with investigating the soaring number of allegations that grantees have ignored rules requiring them to disclose support from China and other countries when seeking NSF funding. NSF Inspector General, Allison Lerner, told the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives this week at a hearing on how to preserve research security without jeopardizing international scientific collaborations, that cases of foreign influence now make up 65% of the office casework. All but one of the cases involve an award to a scientist with links to China. Read the full article.
 

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology met for the first time under the Biden administration on Sept. 28, kicking off a series of listening sessions structured around the five questions President Biden posed to his science adviser Eric Lander in January. The first listening session dealt with challenges facing U.S. competitiveness in key technology sectors and featured a panel focused on barriers to technology commercialization and strategies for spurring regional innovation and domestic manufacturing. On Sept. 29, PCAST held a second listening session on lessons learned from the pandemic. On Oct. 18 and 19, the next council meeting will be dedicated to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Read the full article.

As part of President Biden’s whole-of-government approach to confronting the climate crisis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its climate adaptation and resilience plan describing how USDA will prepare for current and future impacts of climate change. The Adaptation Plan is aligned with a renewed and broad effort across USDA to prioritize climate action and increase resilience to climate impacts among American producers, landowners, and communities. The plan builds on USDA’s earlier Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Strategy: 90-Day Progress Report, which focused on opportunities in the agriculture and forestry sectors for climate change mitigation and carbon sequestration. The Adaptation Plan identifies key climate threats to agriculture and forestry and outlines five cross-cutting adaptation actions USDA can take. Read the full article.
 

Science and Society News

All Annual Meeting attendees are invited to the ASA, CSSA, SSSA Town Hall followed by a Meet & Greet Networking Social with cash bar. This Annual Meeting event will feature an update on the Societies’ CEO Search, including the Needs Assessment results, is Sunday Nov. 7, 3:45-5:00pm in the Salt Palace Convention Center, Room 150G. See the preliminary program here.
 

In recognition of World Food Day, Wiley will be presenting a webinar featuring Dr. Carrie Laboski, SSSA Incoming President in 2022 on October 18, 2021, targeted to researchers interested in food sustainability. “New Horizons in Food Sustainability” will focus on scientists who are seeking to increase food sustainability with their research. Registration is free! Please register to attend.
 

FINAL CHANCE to save $ on the 2021 ASA, CSSA, SSSA Annual Meeting registration! Register by October 15 to save. Currently, there are 3000 scientific presentations and an estimated 3,000+ in-person attendees. View the preliminary program. The safety of our attendees is and always will be paramount. Connecting scientific leaders from around the world is also vital in turning strategies into actions and actions into impacts. Learn more and register here.
 

In the U.S. Midwest, the use of extended rotations that incorporate small grains and forages in addition to the predominant crops corn and soybean can have positive agronomic and environmental impacts. However, despite potential benefits, adoption of more diverse rotation systems across the region is low. Results of a survey published in Agricultural & Environmental Letters, showed that farmers are aware of the potential benefits of extended rotations, but that they perceive major barriers to their use. A major conclusion is that these are structural barriers that cannot be easily addressed by individual farmers. Consequently, changes in agri-food policies, programs, and ultimately markets will be required to foster the spread of extended rotations and the benefits they provide. Read the full article.
 

The ancestral citrus inhabited the foothills of the Himalayas during the late Miocene global cooling about eight million years ago—then, it immediately diversified into a rapid radiation. How the current enormous citrus diversity was achieved is a question that remains un-answered. In contrast to the appealing, seedless, and tasteful fruit of edible citrus, wild pure citrus mandarins, for instance, bear inedible, small, distasteful, acidic, and seedy fruit. A series of two articles in The Plant Genome provide original insights on these questions. Read the full article.
 

Just a meter or two down, below the topsoil that nurtures crops, is a little known part of the ecosystem that may be critical to the planet’s climate future. But this deep soil is surprisingly hard to study. Last month, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced funding for a new $19 million research facility, called the Deep Soil Ecotron, that aims to make studying this frontier easier. Ultimately, researchers hope to use the ecotron facility to study a wide range of questions, including how the deep soil might release carbon and accelerate climate change, how soil microbes and plants interact, and how torrential summer rains and hard winter freezes influence the birth and growth of soil. Read the full article.
 

The annual Borlaug Dialogue each year brings together over 1,200 people from more than 65 countries to address cutting-edge issues related to global food security and nutrition. The three-day conference convenes a wide array of scientific experts, policy leaders, business executives and farmers and has been called "the premier conference in the world on global agriculture." Through the Borlaug Dialogue, the World Food Prize Foundation helps build alliances in the struggle against world hunger and malnutrition. Virtual Registration for the 2021 Borlaug Dialogue is $195. Registration will close on October 22, 2021. Additionally, we are offering a 100% discount for all students anywhere, and citizens of Global South countries who are also in residence in the Global South. Learn more and register here.
 

Register today for a FREE geoscience policy update webinar, Friday, 5 November 2021 at 12 PM EST. We’ll discuss funding for science for fiscal year 2022, the House and Senate innovation packages, diversity and inclusion in STEM legislation, the reconciliation and infrastructure packages, as well as scientific integrity. This webinar is brought to you by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Geosciences Institute (AGI), the Geological Society of America (GSA), the Seismological Society of America (SSA), and the Soils Science Society of America (SSSA). Register today!
 

Climate change is increasing the occurrence rates, intensity, and severity of wildland fires in drought-prone regions. High intensity wildfires not only denude the landscape and lower the resistance of soils to surface erosion, but they also change the physical properties of soils, alter the soil microbiome, and extend the recovery timescales relative to lower intensity fires. Rain-on-burn events can magnify multiple negative impacts, such as poor water quality and debris flows. Wildland management is at a critical juncture, requiring new knowledge and innovative tools to best support the mitigation and prevention of fire-induced hazards. The BESR Fall 2021 Meeting on November 2, 2021 from 12:00 – 5:00 PM (ET) will discuss the emerging frontiers in research and the outlook for implementing science-based tools to support equitable federal, state, and community responses to fire-induced hazards. Learn more and register here.
 

International Corner

Nigeria continues to emerge as a leader in Africa’s adoption of crop biotechnology, approving insect-resistant and drought-tolerant TELA maize for open cultivation. The improved maize joins insect-resistant Bt cotton and pod borer-resistant Bt cowpea as genetically modified (GM) crops that can help Nigeria’s smallholder farmers reduce pesticide use, increase yields, support food security and respond to climate extremes. Read the full article.
 

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

The 2023 Call for Preproposals will be released in late spring 2022 with a summer 2022 application deadline. The Research for Novel Approaches in Sustainable Agriculture Grant Program funds “proof of concept” projects intended to confirm the benefit and/or feasibility of new practices and approaches that have high potential for adoption by farmers. Research may be conducted through field trials, laboratory experiments and social science investigations. Exploratory research with little likelihood of determining feasibility for farmer adoption in the near-term will not be funded. There must be documented interest among farmers and service providers in utilizing or promoting the novel approach, should it be proven beneficial and feasible. Deadline, October 26. Read the full announcement.
 

The 2023 Call for Preproposals will be released in late spring 2022 with a summer 2022 application deadline. The Northeast SARE Professional Development Grant Program funds train-the-trainer projects that develop the knowledge, awareness, skills and attitudes among the full range of service providers who work with farmers, including agricultural professionals who teach, advise and assist farmers about sustainable agriculture practices and strategies as well as non-agricultural service providers that work with farmers. These service providers then use the knowledge, awareness, skills and attitudes they gain in their work with farmers. Deadline, October 26. Read the full announcement.
 

Climate change is likely to cause considerable declines in crop yields, with the most detrimental losses affecting smallholder farmers in developing countries. Climate-smart agriculture is a farming approach that increases agricultural productivity, adapts crops and livestock to grow in changing climates and mitigates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A variety of climate-smart agriculture farming practices and technologies exist; however, adoption of these practices among smallholder farmers is low, particularly in developing countries. The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture invite institutions to submit a written proposal to provide analyses that increase understanding of the climate-smart agriculture policy ecosystem and implementation across India, Kenya and Bangladesh. This request seeks information on key climate-smart agriculture trends and country-specific case studies on incentive mechanisms and their effectiveness in these countries. Deadline, November 3. Read the full announcement.
 

Food production faces a range of challenges from climate change, competition for scarce resources and supply chain disruptions. One solution is controlled environment agriculture, which offers the ability to develop varieties of crops in controlled, non-traditional spaces. Controlled environment agriculture can also enhance desirable traits in crops. To foster the development of controlled environment agriculture science, FFAR’s Precision Indoor Plants (PIP) consortium is seeking research applications focused on understanding the genetic and biochemical elements responsible for premium strawberry flavors, in addition to the environmental control of these elements. Strawberries have a range of diverse flavors that have been lost in modern varieties but that still exist in nature. This funding opportunity aims to build on existing strawberry research, including flavor research, to increase scientific understanding of premium flavors in strawberry and how flavorful strawberries can impact the controlled environment agriculture sector. By understanding genetic and environmental influences on flavor, we can not only recover these flavors, but also expand our abilities to adapt crops to controlled environment agriculture. Pre-proposals due, November 10. Read the full announcement.
 

The Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates (RaMP) in Biological Sciences program invites the submission of proposals to establish networks to support full-time research, mentoring, and training for recent college graduates who have had few or no research or training opportunities during college in research fields typically supported by the Directorate of Biological Sciences (BIO). Fostering the growth of a globally competitive and diverse research workforce and advancing the innovative scientific skills of the U.S. is a strategic objective of the National Science Foundation (NSF). To that end, proposals submitted to this program are expected to create strong evidence-based and inclusive mentorship programs that will advance the goal of creating a competitive and highly representative science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce in the U.S. Transitions into the STEM workforce could include pathways into research-focused M.S. or Ph.D. programs, industry, federal or state agencies, education and research centers, and other STEM careers. Individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM, first generation college students, and students at under-resourced institutions frequently have limited opportunities to participate in the undergraduate research experiences that are necessary to be competitive for graduate programs or other STEM career pathways. Deadline, January 10. Read the full announcement.
 

The Macrosystems Biology and NEON-Enabled Science (MSB-NES) : Research on Biological Systems at Regional to Continental Scales program will support quantitative, interdisciplinary, systems-oriented research on biosphere processes and their complex interactions with climate, land use, and changes in species distribution at regional to continental scales as well as training activities to broaden participation of researchers in Macrosystems Biology and NEON-Enabled Science. MSB-NES projects that use data and/or resources from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) are encouraged. Substantive NEON-enabled projects rely on data and/or samples collected by NEON and/or co-locate research activities at NEON sites. Deadline, January 10. Read the full announcement.
 

This program is a joint government effort between the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), U.S. Department of Education (ED) Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Department of Defense (DOD) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD (R&E)), and IBM Corporation (IBM). This program solicitation expands upon the nationwide network established by the first 18 AI Research Institutes to pursue transformational advances in a range of economic sectors, and science and engineering fields. In this round, the program invites proposals for institutes that have a principal focus in one of the following themes: 1) Intelligent Agents for Next-Generation Cybersecurity, 2) Neural and Cognitive Foundations of Artificial Intelligence, 3) AI for Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry, 4) AI for Decision making, 5) Trustworthy AI, and 6) AI-Augmented Learning to Expand Education Opportunities and Improve Outcomes. Pre-proposals due January 14. Read the full announcement.
 

The Office of Science (SC) of the Department of Energy (DOE) hereby announces its continuing interest in receiving grant applications for support of work in the following program areas: Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Biological and Environmental Research, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Isotope R&D and Production, and Accelerator R&D and Production. This FOA is our annual, broad, open solicitation that covers all research areas in SC and is open throughout the Fiscal Year. Any research within SC’s Congressionally-authorized mission may be proposed under this FOA. Deadline, September 30, 2022. Read the full announcement.
 

Sources: Washington Post; ScienceInsider; The White House; AIP FYI; USDA; The World Food Prize; National Academies; Alliance for Science; NSF; DOE-SC; SARE

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.

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