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; 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.

该区域创新发动机开发奖的重点是佐治亚州南部的农业。农业对佐治亚州的年度影响为740亿美元，是改善该地区社区繁荣和生活质量的关键。该发展奖的重点是强大的自适应农村创新，该创新将利用佐治亚州的两所土地赠款大学（佐治亚大学（UGA）（UGA）（UGA）和福特瓦利州立大学）和社区资产来建立综合农业（IA）基础设施“到位”。 IA是指具有环境，经济，社会和代际可持续性的农业系统。 “到位”是指与当地社区合作，建造人们居住的资本：乔治亚州南部的20个县地区，人口约为65万居民。这项努力将通过开发奖的六个互锁“齿轮” - 社区，现场创新，劳动力发展，使用使用启发的研究和生活质量来创造长期的弹性。该愿景将通过可信赖的地方政府，学校，社区学院，行业和非营利性合作伙伴的社区网络实现。Georgia的小型专业农场面临技术，劳动力，农民多样性，决策和资源的独特挑战。通过使用使用的研发，农民将利用这一努力来开发新的IA生态系统。项目将转化精确农业，增值农业制造业，可再生能源，可持续和弹性基础设施以及电子机动性方面的尖端研究。 UGA的合作扩展是一个可信赖的社区合作伙伴，深深地嵌入了所有20个县，将确保努力受到社区需求的驱动和响应。两个非营利组织在农村经济发展方面具有专业知识，即农村创新和Venturewell中心，将与推广代理商及其最终的社区合作，通过翻译团队使用启发的研究来增强和多样化社区经济。发展奖还将使团队能够培养当地的企业家主义并培养创新文化，以提出产品概念以满足社区的当地需求。这种现场方法可以减轻由于自动化增加而导致的农村人口减少。该团队的劳动力发展计划与美国农业洞察力的佐治亚州技术学院系统共同创建并交付，将为新生态系统提供熟练的劳动力和创新者，同时同时实现可衡量的生活质量改善。团队的创新包容委员会将与社区领导层紧密合作，以吸引不足的创新生态系统。到计划期结束时，团队的深层社区参与和现场创新战略将发展为推动成功的NSF引擎所需的关系，同理心和知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的审查标准来通过评估来支持的。