urgent agricultural challenges

Read Emily Waltz' interview with Roger Beachy, the new director for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the new research funding arm of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). What does Beachy's appoinment mean for researchers, farmers and consumers? Larger, longer grants with more money for education or extension, so the knowledge can reach from the lab to the food to the fork; a stonger focus on sustinable approaches; and a regulatory stucture that is science based We need to build enhanced capacity in the US to address urgent agricultural challenges such as sustainable…