NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing next generation agriculture in Southern Georgia (GA)

NSF 发动机发展奖：推动南乔治亚州 (GA) 的下一代农业

• 批准号: 2303322
• 负责人: Karen Burg
• 金额: $ 100万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-15 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2303322&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Engines; Development; Award; Advancing

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on agriculture in Southern Georgia. With a $74 billion annual impact in Georgia, agriculture is key to improving community prosperity and quality of life in the region. This Development Award is focused on robust, adaptive rural innovation that will leverage Georgia's two land grant universities (University of Georgia (UGA) and Fort Valley State University) and community assets to build an Integrative Agriculture (IA) infrastructure "in place." IA means farming systems with environmental, economic, social, and intergenerational sustainability. "In place" means teaming with local communities to build capital where people live: a 20-county region in South Georgia with diverse population of ~650,000 residents. The effort will create long-term resiliency in the region through the Development Award's six interlocking "gears"-economic development, community, innovation-in-place, workforce development, use-inspired research, and quality of life. This vision will be realized through trusted community networks of local government, schools, community colleges, industry and nonprofit partners.Georgia's small specialty crop farms face unique challenges in technology, labor, farmer diversity, decision-making, and resources. Through use-inspired R&D, farmers will leverage this effort to develop a new IA ecosystem. Projects will translate cutting-edge research in precision agriculture, value-added agricultural manufacturing, renewable energy, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, and e-mobility. UGA's Cooperative Extension, a trusted community partner deeply embedded in all 20 counties, will ensure that the effort is driven by and responsive to community needs. Two nonprofits with expertise in rural economic development, the Center on Rural Innovation and VentureWell, will partner with extension agents, and ultimately communities, to strengthen and diversify community economies with translation of the team's use-inspired research. The Development Award will also enable the team to cultivate local entrepreneurialism and foster an innovation culture to bring forth product concepts to meet the local needs of the communities. This innovation-in-place approach can mitigate rural depopulation caused by increased automation. The team's workforce development programs, co-created with and delivered though the Technical College System of Georgia, with US Department of Agriculture insights, will provide the skilled workforce and innovators required for the new ecosystem, while concomitantly leading to measurable improvements in quality of life. The team's Council for Innovative Inclusion will work closely with community leadership to engage the underserved in the innovation ecosystem. By the end of the planning period, the team's strategy of deep community engagement and innovation-in-place will have developed the relationships, empathy, and knowledge needed to fuel a successful NSF Engine.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该区域创新引擎发展奖重点关注乔治亚州南部的农业。农业每年为佐治亚州带来 740 亿美元的影响，是改善该地区社区繁荣和生活质量的关键。该发展奖重点关注稳健、适应性强的农村创新，该创新将利用佐治亚州的两所赠地大学（佐治亚大学 (UGA) 和谷堡州立大学）和社区资产，“就位”建设综合农业 (IA) 基础设施。 IA 意味着具有环境、经济、社会和代际可持续性的农业系统。 “就地”意味着与当地社区合作，在人们居住的地方建设首都：南乔治亚州的一个 20 个县的地区，人口约 650,000 名。这项努力将通过发展奖的六个相互关联的“齿轮”——经济发展、社区、就地创新、劳动力发展、基于使用的研究和生活质量——在该地区创造长期的弹性。这一愿景将通过当地政府、学校、社区大学、行业和非营利合作伙伴组成的值得信赖的社区网络来实现。佐治亚州的小型特种作物农场在技术、劳动力、农民多样性、决策和资源方面面临着独特的挑战。通过以使用为灵感的研发，农民将利用这一努力来开发新的IA生态系统。项目将转化精准农业、增值农业制造、可再生能源、可持续和弹性基础设施以及电动交通领域的前沿研究。 UGA 的 Cooperative Extension 是深入渗透到所有 20 个县的值得信赖的社区合作伙伴，将确保这项工作由社区需求驱动并响应社区需求。农村创新中心和 VentureWell 这两个在农村经济发展方面拥有专业知识的非营利组织将与推广机构合作，最终与社区合作，通过转化团队的使用启发研究来加强社区经济并使其多样化。发展奖还将帮助团队培养当地的创业精神，培育创新文化，提出产品概念，以满足当地社区的需求。这种就地创新方法可以缓解因自动化程度提高而导致的农村人口减少。该团队的劳动力发展计划是与佐治亚州技术学院系统共同创建并通过美国农业部的见解提供的，将为新生态系统提供所需的熟练劳动力和创新者，同时带来生活质量的显着改善。该团队的创新包容委员会将与社区领导层密切合作，让服务不足的群体参与创新生态系统。到规划期结束时，该团队的深入社区参与和就地创新的战略将发展出推动成功的 NSF 引擎所需的关系、同理心和知识。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并被认为是值得的通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来获得支持。