Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Approval of agenda and minutes of previous meeting: approved

Susan Duncan Admin Advisor Comments: USDA science blueprint to see their needs and values; National Academy of Science document looking at agriculture and advancements needed. Look for this. Process of proposal and approval. Charlie suggested the Southern Bulletin articles of collaborators. Answer these two questions “How is this different than previous project proposal?” and “What is the value of this proposal?”. How it has evolved to meet future needs. Suggestion: Create a “white paper” of the historical information the group has done to not take away from the page limit. Suggestion: What makes this project great and why should we be funded.

Developing cross-state data and illustration that we aren’t working in solos. Funding streams that are related to SCRI or other competitive funding that have multiple members of the group involved or community type clientele that should the value that the group or the project is provided.

New Objectives of the Multi-State Proposal:

Deadline: March 13th; get proposal in end of March

1. Susan and Bill doing
2. Charlie taking lead on survey and to develop the new questions. Taking out members who are in-active from NIFA list.
3. Bridget and Hayk taking lead on objective three.
4. Ben and Robin doing.

Continuing efforts to recruiting new members

2019 Green Industry Survey Updates:

Hayk – online survey – What are the new objectives? Continuation plus adjusting to consider changes within the industry.

Summary Report – ready in a few weeks

Total number of useful responses: 2,170

Google document of who is involved in the papers and who is doing which tasks

Analyses we should do- differences between email and mail responses and possibly avoid the mailing. Age, employee #, sales – cite “there wasn’t a difference with these key attributes” type of language.

Southeast, Midwest, and Northeast account for 60% of responses.

Economic Impact – under review with JEH

Descriptive Production Practices anything from IPM to irrigation

Marketing practice orientated study 1 – update the previous article with Bridget, Sue, and Ariana comparing with general marketing practices

            Ariana (Analysis?), Bridget (Literature review/results), Sue, Hayk (data generation)

Trade flows

            Hayk

Vote on the rules: Data cleaners and collectors must be on an author on the article

Chair and Secretary Elections: Ben and Ariana

Selection of site for Summer 2020 meeting: Philadelphia August 18-21

Selection of site for Winter 2021 meeting: Key Largo February 24-26

Bridget motioned adjourned meeting; Susan seconded motion. Meeting adjourned at 12:28 PM

In 2019 the green industry survey data collection was completed.  The data is now being analyzed in a variety of ways with papers and extension articles being written around economic impact (nationally and by state), economics and marketing, labor and water usage, etc.