Progress 08/01/17 to 09/30/18
Outputs
Target Audience:The project was formally announced on March 1, 2017 with a call for nominations for the committee.The call for nominations was widely distributed to the membership of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The call for nominations was also sent to the subscribers of listservs of the various boards with relevant areas for the study (Boards on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Life Sciences, Water Sciences and Technology, Food and Nutrition, Environmental Change and Society, and Human-Systems Intergration). "IdeaBuzz" (an online discussion platform) was used to solicit input and white papers and to assist the committee in more broadly engage and gathering ideas from the scientific community. Ideabuzz went "live" in May 2017. and a total of 79 individuals submitted input to the committee using this platform, providing ideas on the most challenging issues and the most promising scientific opportunities.The committee used this input to help inform their topics for future meetings. Five committee meetings were held to gather information from experts beyond the traditional agricultural disciplines. At one of these meetings was a four-day "jamboree" in which scientists from various disciplines were tasked to identify the biggest problems in food and agriculture, discuss the greatest scientific challenges, identify overlaps and synergies, and discuss science breakthroughs for overcoming challenges in the next 10+ years. Webinars were also held to solicit additional information from experts in food science, phosphorus, water, sensors, and the built environment. The committee drafted its report, submitted it for anonymous peer review, and a final report was released on July 17, 2018. The primary audiences for the report include the study sponsors (USDA-NIFA, NSF, DOE, SoAR Foundation, and FFAR), agricultural research scientists, non-agricultural researchers, and decision-makers. The House and Senate Agriculture Committees, House Appropriations Committee, and House Science Committee were briefed on the report's findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The DOE Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC) was briefed on some targeted areas within the Science Breakthroughs report. (The Supporters of Agricultural Research Foundation, the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research, and the National Academies' Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources continue to identify opportunities to promote the findings and recommendations of the report and to organize activities around the report in the scientific community). Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?An embargoed pdf of the report was delivered to the sponsors on July 12, 2018. As a courtesy to our sponsors, an in-person sponsor briefing with the committee co-chairs and two members of the committee was held on July 17 prior to the report's release. In addition, briefings were also held on July 17 & 18 with staff from the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and the House Appropriations Committee. The report was publicly released on July 18, 2018, and the four members of the committee conducted a webinar to discuss the committee's findings and recommendations and answered questions from the public. Approximately 200 people tuned into the webinar. In August 2018, staff from the House Science Committee were also briefed on the report. The report has been downloaded from the National Academies Press website (www.nap.edu) more than 5,600 times as of November 27, 2018. The project was cited in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030 is a consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that identifies the most promising scientific breakthroughs that are possible to achieve in the next decade to increase the U.S. food and agriculture system's sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience. Information-gathering meetings brought together scientists and engineers outside the traditional food and agricultural disciplines, and robust discussions were held on the necesary knowledge, tools, and techniques needed to address society's most challenging concerns related to food and agriculture. The urgent progress needed today, given challenges such as water scarcity, increased weather variability, floods, and droughts, requires a convergent research approach that harnesses advances in data science, materials science, information technology, behavioral sciences, economics, and many other fields. The committee identified five breakthrough opportunities that take advantage of a convergent approach to research challenges and could potentially increase the capabilities of food and agricultural science dramatically. They include recommendations for a range of federal agencies, as well as federal and private funders and researchers. Transdisciplinary science and systems approaches should be prioritized to solve agriculture's most vexing problems. A systems approach to understand the nature of interactions among the different elements of the food and agricultural system can be leveraged to increase overall system efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. Progress in meeting major goals can occur only when the scientific community begins to more methodically integrate science, technology, human behavior, economics, and policy into biophysical and empirical models. For example, there is the need to integrate the rate and determinants of adopting new technologies, practices, products, and processing innovations into food and agricultural system models. This approach is required to properly quantify the shifts in resource use, market effects, and response, and to determine benefits that are achievable from scientific and technological breakthroughs. Consideration of these system interactions is critical for finding holistic solutions to the food and agricultural challenges that threaten our security and competitiveness. Create an initiative to more effectively employ existing sensing technologies and to develop new sensing technologies across all areas of food and agriculture. The development and validation of precise, accurate, field-deployable sensors and biosensors will enable rapid detection and monitoring capabilities across various food and agricultural disciplines. Scientific and technological advances in materials science, microelectronics, and nanotechnology are now poised to create novel nanosensors and biosensors to continuously monitor an array of environmental conditions and stressors. For example, in situ soil and crop sensors could provide continuous data feed and alert the farmer when moisture content in soil and turgor pressure in plants falls below a critical level, and initiate site-specific irrigation to a group of plants, eliminating the need to irrigate the entire field. In planta sensors could quantify biochemical changes in plants caused by an insect pest or a pathogen, alerting and enabling the producer to plan and deploy immediate site-specific control strategies before the infestation occurs or the damage is visible. Biosensors for food products could indicate product spoilage and alert distributor and consumers to take necessary action. Establish initiatives to nurture the emerging area of agri-food informatics and to facilitate the adoption and development of information technology, data science, and artificial intelligence in food and agricultural research. The application and integration of data sciences, software tools, and systems models will enable advanced analytics for managing the food and agricultural system. The food and agricultural system collects an enormous amount of data, but has not had the right tools to use it effectively. Data generated in research laboratories and in the field have been maintained in an unconnected manner, preventing the ability to generate insights from its integration. The ability to more quickly collect, analyze, store, share, and integrate highly heterogeneous datasets will create opportunities to vastly improve our understanding of the complex problems, and ultimately, to the widespread use of near-real-time, data-driven management approaches. Establish an initiative to exploit the use of genomics and precision breeding to genetically improve traits of agriculturally important organisms. The ability to carry out routine gene editing of agriculturally important organisms will allow for precise and rapid improvement of traits important for productivity and quality. Gene editing--aided by recent advances in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics--is poised to accelerate breeding to generate traits in plants, microbes, and animals that improve efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. Comparing hundreds of genotypes using omics technologies can speed the selection of alleles to enhance productivity, disease or drought resistance, nutritional value, and palatability. For instance, the tomato metabolome was effectively modified for enhanced taste, nutritional value, and disease resistance, and the swine genome was effectively targeted with the successful introduction of resistance to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus. This capability opens the door to domesticating new crops and soil microbes, developing disease-resistant livestock, controlling organisms' response to stress, and mining biodiversity for useful genes. Establish an initiative to increase the understanding of the animal, soil, and plant microbiomes and their broader applications across the food system. Understanding the relevance of the microbiome to agriculture and harnessing this knowledge to improve crop production, transform feed efficiency, and increase resilience to stress and disease. Emerging accounts of research on the human microbiome provide tantalizing reports of the effect of resident microbes on our body's health. In comparison, a detailed understanding of the microbiomes in agriculture--animals, plants, and soil--is markedly more rudimentary, even as their functional and critical roles have been recognized for each at a fundamental level. A better understanding of molecular-level interactions between the soil, plant, and animal microbiomes could revolutionize agriculture by improving soil structure, increasing feed efficiency and nutrient availability, and boosting resilience to stress and disease. With increasingly sophisticated tools to probe agricultural microbiomes, the next decade of research promises to bring increasing clarity to their role in agricultural productivity and resiliency.
Publications
- Type:
Books
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25059.
|
Progress 08/01/17 to 07/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:The project was formally announced on March 1, 2017 with a call for nominations for the committee.The call for nominations was widely distributed to the membership of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The call for nominations was also sent to the subscribers of listservs of the various boards with relevant areas for the study (Boards on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Life Sciences, Water Sciences and Technology, Food and Nutrition, Environmental Change and Society, and Human-Systems Intergration). "IdeaBuzz" (an online discussion platform) was used to solicit input and white papers and to assist the committee in more broadly engage and gathering ideas from the scientific community. Ideabuzz went "live" in May 2017. and a total of 79 individuals submitted input to the committee using this platform, providing ideas on the most challenging issues and the most promising scientific opportunities.The committee used this input to help inform their topics for future meetings. Five committee meetings were held to gatherinformation from experts beyond the traditional agricultural disciplines. At one of these meetings was a four-day "jamboree" in which scientists from various disciplines were tasked to identify the biggest problems in food and agriculture, discuss the greatest scientific challenges, identify overlaps and synergies, and discuss science breakthroughs for overcoming challenges in the next 10+ years. Webinars were also held to solicit additional information from experts in food science, phosphorus, water, sensors, and the built environment. The committee drafted its report, submitted it for anonymous peer review, and a final report was released on July 17, 2018. The primary audiences for the report include the study sponsors (USDA-NIFA, NSF, DOE, SoAR Foundation, and FFAR),agricultural research scientists, non-agricultural researchers, and decision-makers. The House and Senate Agriculture Committees, House Appropriations Committee, and House Science Committee were briefed on the report's findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?An embargoed pdf of the report was delivered to the sponsors on July 12, 2018. As a courtesy to our sponsors, an in-person sponsor briefing with the committee co-chairs and two members of the committee was held on July 17 prior to the report's release. In addition, briefings were also held on July 17 & 18 with staff from the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and the House Appropriations Committee. The report was publicly released on July 18, 2018, and the four members of the committee conducted a webinar to discuss the committee's findings and recommendations and answered questions from the public. In August 2018, staff from the House Science Committee were also briefed on the report. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to continue to find opportunities to discuss the report with the public, policymakers, and the scientific community. A session at the next meeting of the National Academies' Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources (BANR) will be dedicated to a discussion of the report. We hope to drill down into the recommendations of the report in collaboration with other scientific organizations to explore priority projects within each of the five opportunity areas.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030 is aconsensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that identifies the most promising scientific breakthroughs that are possible to achieve in the next decade to increase the U.S. food and agriculture system's sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience. Information-gathering meetings brought together scientists and engineers outside the traditional food and agricultural disciplines, and robust discussions were held on the necesary knowledge, tools, and techniques needed to address society's most challenging concerns related to food and agriculture. The urgent progress needed today, given challenges such as water scarcity, increased weather variability, floods, and droughts, requires a convergent research approach that harnesses advances in data science, materials science, information technology, behavioral sciences, economics, and many other fields.The committee identified five breakthrough opportunities that take advantage of a convergent approach to research challenges and could potentially increase the capabilities of food and agricultural science dramatically. They include recommendations for a range of federal agencies, as well as federal and private funders and researchers: Transdisciplinary science and systems approaches should be prioritized to solve agriculture's most vexing problems. A systems approach to understand the nature of interactions among the different elements of the food and agricultural system can be leveraged to increase overall system efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. Progress in meeting major goals can occur only when the scientific community begins to more methodically integrate science, technology, human behavior, economics, and policy into biophysical and empirical models. For example, there is the need to integrate the rate and determinants of adopting new technologies, practices, products, and processing innovations into food and agricultural system models. This approach is required to properly quantify the shifts in resource use, market effects, and response, and to determine benefits that are achievable from scientific and technological breakthroughs. Consideration of these system interactions is critical for finding holistic solutions to the food and agricultural challenges that threaten our security and competitiveness. Create an initiative to more effectively employ existing sensing technologies and to develop new sensing technologies across all areas of food and agriculture. The development and validation of precise, accurate, field-deployable sensors and biosensors will enable rapid detection and monitoring capabilities across various food and agricultural disciplines. Scientific and technological advances in materials science, microelectronics, and nanotechnology are now poised to create novel nanosensors and biosensors to continuously monitor an array of environmental conditions and stressors. For example, in situ soil and crop sensors could provide continuous data feed and alert the farmer when moisture content in soil and turgor pressure in plants falls below a critical level, and initiate site-specific irrigation to a group of plants, eliminating the need to irrigate the entire field. In planta sensors could quantify biochemical changes in plants caused by an insect pest or a pathogen, alerting and enabling the producer to plan and deploy immediate site-specific control strategies before the infestation occurs or the damage is visible. Biosensors for food products could indicate product spoilage and alert distributor and consumers to take necessary action. Establish initiatives to nurture the emerging area of agri-food informatics and to facilitate the adoption and development of information technology, data science, and artificial intelligence in food and agricultural research. The application and integration of data sciences, software tools, and systems models will enable advanced analytics for managing the food and agricultural system. The food and agricultural system collects an enormous amount of data, but has not had the right tools to use it effectively. Data generated in research laboratories and in the field have been maintained in an unconnected manner, preventing the ability to generate insights from its integration. The ability to more quickly collect, analyze, store, share, and integrate highly heterogeneous datasets will create opportunities to vastly improve our understanding of the complex problems, and ultimately, to the widespread use of near-real-time, data-driven management approaches. Establish an initiative to exploit the use of genomics and precision breeding to genetically improve traits of agriculturally important organisms. The ability to carry out routine gene editing of agriculturally important organisms will allow for precise and rapid improvement of traits important for productivity and quality. Gene editing--aided by recent advances in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics--is poised to accelerate breeding to generate traits in plants, microbes, and animals that improve efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. Comparing hundreds of genotypes using omics technologies can speed the selection of alleles to enhance productivity, disease or drought resistance, nutritional value, and palatability. For instance, the tomato metabolome was effectively modified for enhanced taste, nutritional value, and disease resistance, and the swine genome was effectively targeted with the successful introduction of resistance to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus. This capability opens the door to domesticating new crops and soil microbes, developing disease-resistant livestock, controlling organisms' response to stress, and mining biodiversity for useful genes. Establish an initiative to increase the understanding of the animal, soil, and plant microbiomes and their broader applications across the food system. Understanding the relevance of the microbiome to agriculture and harnessing this knowledge to improve crop production, transform feed efficiency, and increase resilience to stress and disease. Emerging accounts of research on the human microbiome provide tantalizing reports of the effect of resident microbes on our body's health. In comparison, a detailed understanding of the microbiomes in agriculture--animals, plants, and soil--is markedly more rudimentary, even as their functional and critical roles have been recognized for each at a fundamental level. A better understanding of molecular-level interactions between the soil, plant, and animal microbiomes could revolutionize agriculture by improving soil structure, increasing feed efficiency and nutrient availability, and boosting resilience to stress and disease. With increasingly sophisticated tools to probe agricultural microbiomes, the next decade of research promises to bring increasing clarity to their role in agricultural productivity and resiliency.
Publications
- Type:
Books
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030.Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25059.
|