Science Policy Report

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

16 December 2015

In This Issue:

Policy News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Science News

Policy News

ASA, CSSA and SSSA graduate student members with an interest in advocacy and science policy are encouraged to apply for the 2016 Future Leaders in Science award. Recipients of the award will travel to Washington D.C. to participate in the 2016 Congressional Visits Day, March 14-15. This is a unique opportunity to meet with your members of Congress to discuss the importance and impact of food, agriculture and natural resources research. Be an advocate for science and apply for the Future Leaders in Science award today! Deadline, January 15. Read the full announcement.

Released early Wednesday morning, the $1.1 trillion omnibus funding package is the culmination of weeks of tense negotiations between both sides of the aisle. Many of the contentious policy riders that had been suggested did not make it into the final bill, but both Republicans and Democrats secured key victories. With the increased spending caps from the Bipartisan Budget Act, research funding agencies were also winners in the omnibus bill. Research programs at USDA, NSF and Department of Energy, Office of Science all saw at least small funding increases for fiscal year 2016. In particular, the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) saw an increase of $25 million. To provide time Congress to review and vote on the final omnibus bill, they will also need another short-term continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government lights on past Wednesday, when the current CR expires. Read the full article.

At the end of the first hearing he’s chaired on climate change, Senator Ted Cruz (R–TX) laid out a set of facts intended to disprove the claims of those he calls “global warming alarmists.” The bits of information that Cruz presented at the hearing “Data or dogma? Promoting open inquiry in the debate over the magnitude of human impact on Earth’s climate” are either irrelevant to, or at odds with, what is actually happening to Earth’s climate. Cruz laid out his views during a 3-hour piece of political theater staged by the science panel of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which he chairs. The hearing provided a forum for three scientists known for their contrarian views on climate change. Read the full article.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a request for information (RFI) on ways to stimulate innovation in agriculture. The request poses a series of questions ranging across education, training and research needs to improve innovation in agriculture and food systems. ASA, CSSA and SSSA provided a response to the RFI which can be read here. In addition to the areas outlined in each Societies’ Science Frontiers, the response also provided three specific examples of agricultural innovation: precision agriculture, nutrient use efficiency and soil health.

Dr. Cherry Murray was confirmed by the Senate on December 10 as the Director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. As Director of the Office of Science, Dr. Murray will oversee research in the areas of advanced scientific computing, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental sciences, fusion energy sciences, high energy physics, and nuclear physics. She will have responsibility not only for supporting scientific research, but also for the development, construction, and operation of unique, open-access scientific user facilities. The Office of Science manages 10 of the Department’s 17 National Laboratories. Read the full article.

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, in partnership with the Farm Foundation, announced the launch of the Soil Health Institute, a private-public partnership that works directly with farmers, researchers, academia, legislators, government regulators, industry, and environmental groups to improve soil health. The Institute will focus on five specific areas: research, standards and measurement, economics, education/communication and public policy. Read the full article.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has decided to look for a new organization to build its National Ecological Observatories Network (NEON) in hopes of saving the troubled project. “NSF… has minimal confidence in NEON Inc’s ability to manage the remaining construction and initial operations of the NEON project,” the head of NSF’s biology directorate, James Olds, wrote today to the Boulder, Colorado-based organization that has managed the project since its inception in 2007. In August, NSF decided to shrink the size and scope of the $434-million facility after discovering that it was running $80 million over budget and a year behind schedule. Read the full article.

Monsanto Company, one of the world's most powerful, and controversial, multinational corporations, announced Tuesday that it plans to become carbon-neutral by 2021, reducing its own net emissions while helping client farmers do the same. Of all the greenhouse gases associated with global warming, carbon is the main gas produced by human activity, and agriculture plays a large role: Food and farming account for 29 percent of greenhouse gases, from sources like livestock manure, the soil itself, and fertilizer production. Read the full article.

The North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (NCR-SARE) is seeking nominees for a seat on its Administrative Council (AC) as follows: Representative of a minority-serving college or university (1890 or 1994 institution). The term for each of these SARE Administrative Council slots is for three years. Council members attend two meetings a year, typically 2-3 day meetings in July and February at various Midwest locations (first meeting for newly elected Council members will be July 12-14, 2016, in Columbus, OH). Travel expenses are fully covered for travel to AC meetings.  Nominees should have a basic understanding of sustainable agriculture and be comfortable with reviewing grant proposals and participating in a group decision-making process. Nominations deadline, Jan. 14. Read the full announcement.  

The climate accord reached Saturday in Paris provides one more avenue to keep international pressure on global food security. It also likely increases scrutiny over greenhouse-gas emissions from food production. The Paris Agreement involving representatives from 195 countries marks the first time a climate agreement has acknowledged the importance of food security as a priority. The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization pointed that out in a statement on the deal. The agreement specifically points to food security as one of several major areas countries need to take into account when dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and/or climate change. Read the full article.

International Corner

Last week, world leaders hashed out a binding agreement in Paris at the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. And for the first time, they've made the capture of carbon in soil a formal part of the global response to the climate crisis. The United Nations Lima-Paris Action Agenda, a sort of side deal aimed at "robust global action towards low carbon and resilient societies." On Dec. 1, countries, businesses and NGOs signed on to a series of new commitments under the agenda, including several on agriculture. A growing number of environmental advocates who say one of the best opportunities for drawing carbon back to Earth is for farmers and other land managers to try to sequester more carbon in the soil. Read the full article.

Scientists at Australia’s premier science agency are breathing a sigh of relief. After losing U.S. $84 million in funding and 1400 jobs since 2013, the new government will hand the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) a welcome U.S. $166 million. It’s part of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s AU$1 billion (U.S. $730 million) signature National Innovation and Science Agenda, announced today in Canberra, and billed as an “ideas boom.” The science community welcomed the strategy for reversing the deep cuts made by previous Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Turnbull replaced fellow Liberal Party member Abbott in the top job last September in an unceremonious palace coup. Read the full article.

The future will be a watery one for some of the world's biggest cities. Predicted sea level increases this century mean many face increased flooding, stronger storm surges, and unpredictable weather. How well coastal cities can cope will dramatically affect quality of life and their economic destiny. Many of the biggest are in Asia, powering economies while housing hundreds of millions of poor in sprawling slums. Read the full article.

The Irish government today released an ambitious 5-year vision for stimulating innovation. Developed by several agencies, the plan calls for increasing total investment in R&D by about a third to 2.0% of gross domestic product. In cash terms, that would mean a rise in public and private spending from last year’s €2.9 billion to about €5 billion per year in 2020. The plan calls for creating a competitive fund for “frontier research” by 2017, although it does not specify the amount of funding. Read the full article.

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Field to Market is releasing a Request for Proposals for the technical development of a revised Water Quality Metric. Currently FTM uses the USDA-NRCS Water Quality Index as our Water Quality Metric. As the science and models have continued to evolve, the Metrics Work Group has determined that a new opportunity exists to develop a tool designed specifically to measure and evaluate for continuous improvement in water quality outcomes. This RFP seeks to engage a third-party partner to assist in development of a new, quantitative Water Quality Metric through collaboration with FTM members. Deadline, Jan. 8. Read the full announcement.  

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is accepting applications for the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP). An estimated $16 million will be available for competitive grant funding to provide financial assistance to implement irrigation systems that reduce greenhouse gases and save water at California agricultural operations. The funding is made available through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, from proceeds of California’s Cap-and-Trade program. Agricultural operations can apply for funding of up-to $200,000 per project, for irrigation and other water projects that provide quantifiable water savings and greenhouse gas reductions. Deadline, Jan. 8. Read the full announcement.  

This program was designed to assist 1994 Land-Grant Institutions (Tribal Colleges) in building institutional research capacity through applied projects that address student educational needs and solve community, reservation or regional problems. Awards are to be made on the basis of a competitive review process. Collaboration with 1862 or 1890 Land Grant Institutions is a requirement. Eligible institutions may propose projects in any discipline of the food and agricultural sciences. Deadline, Feb. 25. Read the full announcement.

The OREI seeks to solve critical organic agriculture issues, priorities, or problems through the integration of research, education, and extension activities. The purpose of this program is to fund projects that will enhance the ability of producers and processors who have already adopted organic standards to grow and market high quality organic agricultural products. Priority concerns include biological, physical, and social sciences, including economics. The OREI is particularly interested in projects that emphasize research, education and outreach that assist farmers and ranchers with whole farm planning by delivering practical research-based information. Projects should plan to deliver applied production information to producers. Fieldwork must be done on certified organic land or on land in transition to organic certification, as appropriate to project goals and objectives. Deadline, March 10. Read the full announcement.  

EarthCube is a community-driven activity sponsored through a partnership between the NSF Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) and the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (ACI) to transform research in the academic geosciences community. EarthCube aims to create a well-connected and facile environment to share data and knowledge in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner, thus accelerating our ability to understand and predict the Earth system. This umbrella solicitation for EarthCube allows funding opportunities to be flexible and responsive to emerging needs and collaborative processes. The EarthCube vision and goals do not change over time, and this section of the solicitation will remain constant. Funding opportunities to develop elements of the EarthCube environment will be described in Amendments to this solicitation. Amendments will appear in the Program Description section of the solicitation and will include details on the parameters, scope, conditions, and requirements of the proposal call. Researchers who receive alerts related to solicitation releases will receive notification when the EarthCube solicitation is updated with an Amendment. Deadline, March 24. Read the full announcement.  

Science News

Wildfire is known to have a dramatic impact on soil, but do soil conditions also affect wildfire? A new study says yes, and the finding could lead to better predictions of wildfire danger. The open access paper, which appears in the November–December 2015 issue of Soil Science Society of America Journal, addressed a simple but understudied question, says Oklahoma State University (OSU) soil scientist and lead author, Erik Krueger: Is soil moisture related to wildfire? When the scientists crunched the numbers, they found that 91% of Oklahoma’s largest fires during the growing season broke out only when soil moisture dropped below levels that cause plants severe stress. Read the full article.

Unchecked climate change risks plunging a further 175 million people into hunger and undernourishment worldwide, undermining progress in reducing food insecurity, a US government report warns. The US Department of Agriculture analysis states that climate change is “projected to result in more frequent disruption of food production in many regions and in increased overall food prices”. The impact of rising temperatures is expected to hit poor people and tropical regions the worst, while those in colder, higher-latitude areas could experience improved agricultural capacity. However, from 2050 onwards, every food-producing region in the world is expected to be detrimentally effected. Read the full article.

It’s time for ecologists and conservation biologists to dig deeper into dirt—in order to better understand the threats facing soil creatures that are key to healthy ecosystems and our food supply, and that might offer a rich source of potential antibiotics. That call to expand studies of oft-neglected underground biodiversity is included in a new collection of papers timed to highlight World Soil Day, which was celebrated on Dec. 4.  “Despite marked progress over the last few decades, currently soil ecology still lags far behind aboveground ecology, and our knowledge of the world belowground is comparatively limited,” soil ecologist Stavros Veresoglou of the Free University of Berlin. Read the full article.

Leaders of the North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (NACSAA) told policy makers and others attending climate talks here this week that agriculture can provide impactful and measurable contributions to global efforts to reverse climate change. Speaking at a panel discussion sponsored by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the sustainable agriculture group Field to Market, the U.S. farm leaders today called on participants in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, also known as Conference of the Parties, or COP21) to embrace the three pillars of climate smart agriculture (sustainable intensification of production, adaptive management and resiliency, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions). Read the full article.

Because plants need carbon dioxide to grow, scientists have expected rising atmospheric CO2 to substantially enhance plant growth, offsetting a portion of human CO2 emissions and, in turn, slowing climate change. However, new research from the Institute on the Environment published today in Nature Climate Change adds to a growing body of research challenging this expectation. Global plant growth has indeed increased over the past 30 years, but not as much as expected given the change in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Comparing new findings with results of widely used on-the-ground measurements and the best available models of plant responses to increasing CO2, Smith and colleagues concluded that current model estimates of plants' ability to offset growing greenhouse gas emissions may be unrealistically optimistic. Read the full article.

A panel of scientists is disputing a World Health Organization report published earlier this year that concluded glyphosate, the world's most widely used weed killer and main ingredient in Monsanto Co's Roundup herbicide, is probably carcinogenic to humans. The 16-member panel, assembled by Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy, will present its findings to the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis on Monday, aiming to publish the study at a later date after peer review. Monsanto paid Intertek for the panel's work. The group said that the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) misinterpreted or incorrectly weighted some of the data it reviewed and ignored other data before classifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, according to an abstract of its findings. Read the full article.

Trees are popular and can provide extraordinary benefits to life in the city. They trap stormwater and provide cooling as they transpire. They generate oxygen, remove pollutants from the air, and provide habitat for birds and many other critters. They help save energy and even prolong the life of asphalt. A recent estimate puts the economic value of trees in the Chicago area alone at $51.2 billion. But for real return on investment, trees must mature. Trees fail because of accidents, vandalism, or disease. They can be improperly planted, poorly chosen and placed, and not adequately nurtured during establishment. They can be staked too long, or not long enough. Heat and drought stress take their toll. All of these things can matter, but the real problem of urban soil is fairly simple: it’s often barely soil at all. Read the full article.

Sources: NSF; USDA; NCSARE; AAAS; ScienceInsider; The New York Times; The Guardian; Reuters; Department of Energy Blog; Politico; Agriculture.com; Agri-Pulse; Oklahoma Farm Report; RRT News; Science Daily; The Christian Science Monitor; NPR; The Progressive Farmer;

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.