By Andi Anderson
Ohio State University (OSU) is spearheading a $10 million project to bridge the gap between agricultural research and practical farming. Despite significant investment in promoting sustainable practices such as cover crops and diversified rotations, adoption rates among farmers remain low.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent just in Ohio to incentivize farmers to adopt,” said Doug Jackson-Smith, Kellog Chair of the AgroEcosystem Management program at OSU. “And despite all that, adoption rates for most of these practices are less than 10%.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $70 million in total to various research projects in June, with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture providing $10 million to each selected project. OSU, in collaboration with Central State, Lincoln University, and the University of Missouri, will focus on translating years of research into sustainable agriculture practices and bringing them to the working farm world.
The collaborative research initiative began on July 1, with plans to build infrastructure over the next six months.
Researchers will partner with farmers during this period to prepare for the first season of fieldwork in 2025. The project aims to identify why certain practices do not translate well into real-world farming situations.
Set up in a three-tier system, the project will connect farmers, scientists, and other partners to bring innovative ideas to life. According to Jackson-Smith, having farmers lead the design and implementation of local projects provides researchers with valuable insights.
“We learn things about farming practices we wouldn't learn otherwise as scientists and we bring the conversation to a whole new place in terms of developing and identifying the innovation pathways we're going to need to solve the problems that we're facing,” he said.
The project will also involve community leaders, such as landlords who rent out farmland, to provide additional perspectives. Ultimately, the goal is to scale successful examples nationally, pushing for the project to influence policy and serve as templates for success.
“The core of this is a network of on-farm research, where farmers will be very involved in designing the kinds of things they want to evaluate, what practices they think are worth evaluating, and helping decide what outcomes we need to measure,” Jackson-Smith said. “So what are the answers? The questions they need answered before they can move forward?”
Projects were selected based on their broad, system-level thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community involvement, said Amy Ganguli, National Program Leader at NIFA.
“We look at these projects as having life beyond that five years," Ganguli said. "And so many of these projects have very strong continuity plans and we often see additional proposals that are built upon the findings of these individual projects.”
The selection process for NIFA grants is highly competitive, with experts from across the country participating in a rigorous peer review process.
“Those proposals are reviewed for their responsiveness to the program's requirements as well as the scientific merit of what they're proposing,” Ganguli explained. “In general, this program supports visionary projects that have the potential to transform our food and agriculture system.”
Photo Credit: ohio-state-university
Categories: Ohio, Education, Sustainable Agriculture