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Collaboration in the Land-Grant System
The Statement of Task directed the Panel to use examples of multistate research and extension activities, Coordinated Agricultural Projects (CAPs), and other regional initiatives involving research, education, and extension to explore the opportunities and limitations of inter-institutional projects, recognizing that collaborative projects may have diverse outcomes. The Statement of Task notes that outcomes may include “those related to addressing specific national priorities, advancing knowledge, building human resource capacity, supporting commercial innovation, producing economic, environmental, and social benefits, and/or increasing public engagement.”
This chapter describes various ways in which collaboration is occurring within the land-grant system and includes several examples of ongoing activities perceived by one or more Panel members as having outcomes such as those listed in the Statement of Task (which appear here in bold in the text describing the examples). The Panel provides these examples not with the objective of finding the “most successful” projects but as illustrative of what is most typical in terms of collaboration in the land-grant system today.
MULTISTATE PROJECTS
The Multistate Research Program is supported by federal Hatch Act funds that are provided to 1862 institutions and their affiliated State Agricultural Experiment Stations (SAES) to work together on pressing problems that concern two or more states. To create a Multistate Research Program project, at least two SAES directors or extension directors must agree that a pressing problem needs to be addressed. After review of the initial request by a regional review committee, a nationwide call for participation is sent to all SAES and extension directors, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and other appropriate agencies and individuals. Interested participants then develop the full scope of the project, which is reviewed and approved by the relevant regional association for an initial 5-year period. Competitive renewals may extend the project beyond 5 years. The Panel found details for 247 currently active multistate research projects on the National Information Management and Support System (NIMSS),1 which includes the project objectives, publications, and a list of participants and organizations. Many of these projects have participants from across the land-grant system as well as representatives from industry, government, and non-land-grant colleges and universities. Participants generally bring their own sources of support to participate in these projects. Very few of the projects have participants from 1890 institutions. The NIMSS website does not enable a search for specific institutions, but a look at the individual details of 50 projects in the southern region found a total of eight 1890 participants (out of hundreds from other institutions) and none from the 1994 institutions.
Since 2012, nontechnical summaries of the research outcomes and economic impacts of multistate research projects have been developed with the help of a communications team that coaches scientists on how to write an impact statement. These are housed at the Multistate Research Fund Impacts website.2
Soil, Water, and Environmental Physics to Sustain Agriculture and Natural Resources
Not all multistate research projects are large-scale collaborations, but the Soil, Water, and Environmental Physics to Sustain Agriculture and Natural Resources project is one that is. It addresses an issue of
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1 See nimss.org, accessed September 20, 2022.
2 See www.mrfimpacts.org/impact-statements, accessed September 20, 2022.
national importance: healthy soils. Soils are critical natural resources that manage, store, and supply water and nutrients to crops. Across the United States, soils are being degraded, the result of human-caused factors from changing land use practices to climate change. The project’s impact statement notes, “For 60 years, researchers from more than 24 State Agricultural Experiment Stations have worked together to better understand how water, energy, and nutrients move through and interact with soil.” In advancing knowledge, the project has helped state and federal agencies develop new tools and best management practices that provide economic, environmental, and social benefits such as reducing flood risks, storing nuclear waste, predicting drought and wildfires, and addressing dust and mine runoff. Members of the project shared information and publicly engaged with concerned Navajo farmers after the Gold King Mine Spill in 2015.
The HYDRUS software, which was developed by the project, is a model to assess hydraulic, thermal, biogeochemical, microbial, and gaseous processes in soils. It is used widely in soil physics, hydrology, and environmental science courses around the world, building human capacity globally in these fields. The project also supported commercial innovation, leading to the design of new sensors, data loggers, and other products sold worldwide to farmers, scientists, and other users.
The Soil, Water, and Environmental Physics to Sustain Agriculture and Natural Resources project received the Excellence in Multistate Research Award in 2021. Of the more than 50 university participants in the project, none are associated with an 1890 or a 1994 institution.
COORDINATED AGRICULTURAL PROJECTS
CAPs are multimillion-dollar ($10 million) grants awarded competitively for a 5-year period through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative program administered by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The competition is open to all universities, colleges, nonprofits, and other research organizations, and the scope of the projects is intentionally multidisciplinary and systems oriented. The current programmatic emphasis for CAP grants is Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS), and proposals must address one or more specified long-term goals: sustainable agricultural intensification, agricultural climate adaptation, value-added innovation, and food and nutrition translation. Within each of these goals are thematic areas that projects should address and expected outcomes. Projects must “result in societal benefits, including promotion of rural prosperity and enhancement of quality of life for all those involved in food and agricultural value chains from production to utilization and consumption.”3 There is a two-step process for applying. A letter of intent must be sent, followed by a final proposal. To be considered for funding, projects must include research, education, and extension elements. The distribution of funds to participating institutions is made as sub-awards from the lead institution. In 2021, NIFA made 15 CAP grant awards under the SAS program. For the first time ever, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) (Central State University) was awarded $10 million and will be the lead performing institution, with partners from 1890, 1994, and 1862 institutions on the topic of sustainable aquaculture production of high omega-3-containing fish using a novel feed additive (hemp).
Unlike the multistate projects, there is no information repository dedicated solely to CAPs, though information about a specific CAP can be searched in USDA’s Current Research Information System. Most CAPs develop their own websites to spotlight the progress of the collaboration during the course of its 5-year span.
The Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project
The Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project (OWCAP) is a large transdisciplinary project addressing a large-scale regional problem of national importance to the agricultural supply. It is focused on developing and sharing practical, science-supported information relevant to best management practices for optimizing water use across the Ogallala region. The Ogallala aquifer is a vital natural resource in
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3 See https://www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/funding-opportunities/agriculture-food-research-initiative-sustainableagricultural-systems, accessed September 27, 2022.
the western United States; it underlies parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and New Mexico. Groundwater pumped from the Ogallala aquifer has transformed this region from a dustbowl to an agricultural powerhouse, producing more than 30 percent of U.S. crops and livestock and significantly increasing domestic and international food supplies. However, extensive groundwater pumping has led to significant depletion of the aquifer and declining water quality in certain areas. In 2016, NIFA funded the OWCAP project to address the multifaceted challenges facing the aquifer region through interdisciplinary and cross-institutional research and outreach. The 70-member interdisciplinary team from 10 institutions and six states catalyzed new understanding to identify and promote management of the Ogallala resource and support the region’s communities. None of the team members were from 1890 or 1994 institutions.
The team’s work focused on multiple scales of water management, including individual producers; local and regional entities, such as groundwater management districts; and the broader multistate aquifer region. Using its integrated approach, the team developed new tools, approaches, and partnerships to inform future water-management research and outreach. Novel outreach mechanisms such as a producer-led irrigator certificate program (producers instructing other producers) and efforts to develop an economic benefit of marketing a brand of beef raised using water-conserving practices are associated with this project. The project built on existing efforts that had been in place since 2003 to monitor and plan for Ogallala aquifer declines using ARS funding. The project illustrates that infusions of supplemental funding are critical in new discoveries and can be particularly impactful when a foundational level of support is already addressing an issue.
NATIONAL AND REGIONAL PROGRAMS
The first of the Panel’s preliminary observations shared with stakeholders stated the following: There is a significant amount of active and successful inter-institutional collaboration and cooperation taking place in the land-grant system today. There was generally broad agreement about that statement from respondents. Individuals who commented gave a list of other types of successful ongoing collaborative work, including Regional Extension and Research Centers, Rural Development Centers, projects funded by the Sustainable Agriculture and Research and Education program, and public–private projects funded by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research,4 among others. Some are funded by an external group but have a purpose and work closely with federally funded researchers, such as the following example.
National Integrated Pest Management Coordinating Committee
The National Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Coordinating Committee (NIPMCC) serves as an example of a project to address the need for improved information exchange among research and extension programs and the actions that were taken to address this problem. In approximately 2012, the IPM community recognized that much of the work it was doing, especially in the Cooperative Extension context, was occurring in a vacuum. Administrators across the system did not know what was being accomplished, nor did scientists in various other programs that had focused missions aimed at specific IPM audiences.
At the behest of IPM practitioners, the Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and its corollary in Cooperative Extension, the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy, formed the NIPMCC. The NIPMCC brings together programs funded under the Crop Protection and Pest Management program at NIFA. Projects are funded competitively at 1862 and 1890 institutions, and can have state or regional scope, and focus on managing plant pests.
The existence of NIPMCC facilitated awareness, communication, and collaboration among disparate parties. It shows the resourcefulness of the scientific community in taking steps to organize itself across the public and private sectors. Another broader effort, called the Tactical Sciences Coordination
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4 See https://foundationfar.org/grants-funding/grants, accessed September 20, 2022.
Network,5 was launched to inspire collaboration and is also meant to incorporate a broader suite of NIFA-funded biosecurity programs in plants, animals, and disaster response. It was started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and is gaining momentum. Although most of these NIFA-sponsored programs are hosted at 1862s, some have partners at 1890s. The main intent, however, is to build collaboration among programs regardless of the host institution type. Apart from the NIPMCC and Tactical Sciences Coordination Network, there is a large number of coordinating committees trying to build national cohesion around a variety of issues of national importance.
Management of Zebra Chip to Enhance Profitability and Sustainability of U.S. Potato Production
Another respondent to the Panel’s preliminary observations mentioned the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) as an important competitive grants program administered by NIFA to bring science to bear on the urgent needs of producers through coordination and collaboration. As an example, the Management of Zebra Chip to Enhance Profitability and Sustainability of U.S. Potato Production centers a coordinated group of researchers on a focused task. It was directed at a newly arrived (at the time) but little known potato disease. The disease is caused by a previously undescribed bacterium and transmitted to potato plants by an insect known as the potato psyllid. It is important because it has caused millions of dollars in losses to the potato industry (Munyaneza, 2012). In its early stage (2009–2014), the project investigated methods for control of the potato psyllid, which was the issue of highest interest to potato producers. Initially funded through the SCRI at NIFA, researchers determined that because even large psyllid populations may not carry the disease bacterium, pesticide spraying is not always needed to fight the disease, advancing knowledge with direct implications for reducing the environmental impacts of pesticides and producers’ costs.
The project developed experimental treatments that enabled spraying at the most appropriate times for psyllid control using the best sequence of pesticides to optimize effectiveness. The treatments developed also provided economic benefits by reducing costs by about $300 per acre.
The project was multidisciplinary, encompassing plant pathology, entomology, horticulture, and economics, and included both research and extension. Its methods were both field and laboratory based, and employed molecular techniques as well as traditional field experimentation. The project team included 20 multidisciplinary researchers and extension specialists from six states (California, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Texas, and Washington) as well as an advisory board of stakeholders and team members from the USDA’s ARS. This project ended in 2014, at which time a great deal more work was needed on combatting zebra chip. Further research at Texas A&M that has been supported by NIFA and the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research continues work on developing long-term solutions to control zebra chip (Mora et al., 2021). The recommendations from the project were communicated to stakeholder groups, and the broad geographical representation of the team assured that the messaging would be shared widely. Post-grant, the zebra chip research team continues with second-generation researchers and many of the original team remaining involved through multistate research projects on potato diseases. However, there are no 1890 or 1994 institutions involved in this work.
HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE
Panel member Moses Kairo introduced the Panel to the HBCU Centers of Excellence (COEs). As part of the 125th Anniversary of the Second Morrill Act in 2015, which celebrated a common mission and purpose among the 19 1890 institutions, three integrative COEs were established, although funds ($5 million) were not appropriated through the Farm Bill until 2018. The COEs were established to leverage dis-
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5 See https://tacticalsciences.org, accessed September 20, 2022.
ciplinary diversity among institutions to deliver positive impacts across the continuum of research, education, and extension. Initially the COEs focused on increasing diversity in the fields of science, technology, engineering, agriculture, and mathematics; increasing profitability and jobs in underserved farming communities; and addressing global food and nutritional security challenges. The 2018 Farm Bill authorized six COEs to include additional focus areas, and in 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded funding to two new HBCUs to establish COEs in biotechnology and materials science. The HBCU COEs embody purposeful and focused collaboration across the 1890 institutions. Their success is critically dependent on the continued availability of resources and on successful efforts to work together while recognizing, and overcoming, the challenges of working across issues, institutions, and geographies.
INTRASTATE COLLABORATION
The Panel found that federal funding that catalyzes and supports collaboration at the state level through the land-grant system affords greater opportunities for 1862, 1890, and 1994 institutions to work together. The Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 requires states to submit work plans and to integrate research with extension activities as a requirement for receiving federal funds. For example, through the Alabama Agricultural Land Grant Alliance, statewide extension activities are jointly conducted by Auburn University (an 1862) and Alabama A&M University and Tuskegee University (both 1890s).
The Montana State University College of Agriculture (COA), Montana Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES), and Extension cooperatively design and implement programs that best align with Montana’s sovereign Indian Nations (H. Michael Harrington, personal communication, September 1, 2022). Because this demographic is largely underserved and underrepresented, programs and goals are targeted to generate strong and beneficial interactions for Montana reservation struggles, priorities, and needs. Activities include work with Montana’s seven 1994 Tribal Colleges and Universities and with tribal councils and colleges across the Rocky Mountain region. Cooperative efforts provide resources and training in livestock management, childhood obesity, food preservation and safety, pasture restoration, environmental stewardship, sustainable agricultural practices, resource and risk management, pesticide certification, and more. Cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness is a priority for all COA, MAES, and Extension programming.
In the cases that the Panel was aware of, activities at the state level appear to be much more oriented toward relationship building as a precursor to greater collaboration involving 1862 and 1994 institutions. A mini-workshop organized by the Panel featured several examples, including two described here.
Panel member Wendy Powers noted that several key principles guide the Virginia Tech (an 1862) and Virginia State University (an 1890) Cooperative Extension team:
- Share a common mission for the Commonwealth of Virginia;
- Recognize that the relationship of the two institutions is not a competition and that there is no win if the other suffers as a result;
- Take time to develop the inter-institutional relationship;
- Function as one organization;
- Maintain constant, open communication; and
- Acknowledge the resource disparity between institutions and build ways to transcend it.
Successes of the program include the fact that 12 research stations welcome all faculty across both institutions, the university presidents talk to each other, and there is recognition that participants must remain mindful of the disparate resource allocations and do not require everything to be “equal.”
Independently of the extension program, the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech initiated the Diversity and Inclusion Seed Investments Program to build other research partnerships between Tech faculty and faculty at HBCUs and minority-serving institutions (Jalali et al., 2021).
Examples of outcomes of these efforts include more courses being co-taught, evaluation metrics being woven into campus policies and operations, co-funding of an extension agent position with potential for another one, and an unwavering commitment to advocating for extension as a whole before the state general assembly. These outcomes led to forming a multicultural alliance; fostering honest conversations; strengthening the position of the alliance to advance changes in the state for all NIFA priorities; and establishing a broader reach to Virginia residents due to increased expertise, experience, and relationships among team members.
The Michigan Inter-Tribal Land Grant Extension System (MILES), introduced by Panel member Steve Yanni and featured in one of the Panel’s mini-workshops, encompasses all four land-grant colleges and universities in Michigan, all 12 federally recognized Tribal Nations, and NIFA. These entities are partnering to coordinate an integrated land-grant system in Michigan and to promote collaboration to determine how to best serve all Tribal Nations, communities, and their citizens. The creation of MILES recognizes the need for building trust among the partnering organizations, ensuring that all partners have a place at the table, and signifying a genuine desire to work together. It also provides a foundation to establish flourishing relationships and collaboration as well as a potential pathway for reducing administrative barriers caused by differences in management practices and policies among member institutions. Some of the goals of MILES include addressing programmatic and research requests; developing leadership; conserving natural resources; conducting family and consumer science; and promoting health, nutrition, and economic development.
DISCUSSION
The Panel found many examples of successful ongoing collaborations involving land-grant colleges and universities that focus on issues of global, national (including Tribal Nations), regional, and state importance. Many of the projects are multidisciplinary. Some have a targeted focus and others serve a coordinating function. The HBCU COEs, while modestly funded, are focusing on building capacity and a breadth of expertise across the HBCU community. The Panel also found examples of systems-level projects in both the multistate and CAP programs.
The 1890 and 1994 institutions are not substantively involved in the multistate activities. There are a number of state-level collaborations, particularly with respect to extension, that are explicitly focused on fostering mutual support and coordination among institutions of all kinds.
Considering this partial snapshot of what is taking place in the land-grant system, the Panel asked several questions. First, are these projects successful and by what metrics? It was beyond the scope of the Panel’s task to conduct detailed evaluations of these projects. However, the Panel observed that many of the projects have demonstrated outcomes, strong administrative structures with oversight, reporting, and support from leadership. Many are also long-standing and have evolved (or matured) into another form after their initial program funding. Collaborators on some of the projects continue to co-publish and work together, suggesting that important interpersonal bonds were established in the course of the activity.
Second, are these projects meeting “the needs of the nation and global food security” as the congressional directive asks? The answer is no, at least not entirely. Projects that do not engage key parts of the land-grant system are, by definition, missing the benefits that broader participation would bring and also are not likely to be serving all of the relevant stakeholders in that work. In addition, not all collaborations are addressing problems at the same scale, nor does it seem logical that they need to. The difficulty in answering this question is that a comprehensive picture of the portfolio of work embodied by these collaborations as juxtaposed against the needs of the nation and for global food security does not exist, much less include the broader universe of activity in which the non-land-grant colleges and universities and other organizations participate.
The last sentence of the Panel’s Statement of Task seems to recognize this reality, asking the Panel “to recommend processes that Land-Grant schools can use to capture and share successes, outcomes, and impacts of joint projects.” Although all of the projects described in this chapter have some kind of informal (website) or formal reporting mechanism and NIFA is able to pull reports on topics of activity, the ability
to bring together all of the outputs and relevance of these collaborations would be incredibly powerful. However, it would require a new paradigm for synthesizing information.
Along those same lines, the Statement of Task asks the Panel to recommend actions to enhance the success and impact of inter-institutional activities. In the next chapter, the Panel presents information about three important considerations for enhancing the success and impact of collaborative activities: cutting-edge science, human and organizational capacity, and financial support.
