Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Review Assignments - New/Renewal Proposals:
John March, Mike Montross
NC1023 (NC_temp1023), Engineering for food safety and quality, https://www.nimss.org/projects/18685

Comments:

The project renews an existing project that has been a highly successful multistate effort. The project is likely to continue to have success. The objectives of the project are appropriate and are: 1. Characterize physical, chemical, and biological properties of raw and processed foods, by-products, and packaging materials. 2. Develop advanced and sustainable processing and packaging technologies to transform raw materials into safe, high quality, health-promoting, and value-added foods. 3. Develop mechanistic and data-driven mathematical models to enhance understanding and optimization of processes and products that will ensure sustainable and agile food manufacturing for safe, high quality, and health-promoting foods. 4. Adapt pedagogical strategies involving novel educational approaches to enhance and assess student learning of food engineering. The project participants are involved in a meaningful way in the objectives. The project is both multistate and multidisciplinary but given nature of the project is dominated by various engineering disciplines and food scientists. Participants throughout the country are involved in the project. The project has been reviewed. The project has specific outcomes and impacts that it plans to attain with specific outcomes for various years identified in the proposal. The identification of the outcomes were identified from a range of inputs. The project that precedes this one was successful in leveraging resources from a range of sources to accomplish the objectives. The project is well aligned with NIFA goals.
The committee approved the recommendation.

Scott Shearer
NC_temp1210, Frontiers in On-Farm Experimentation, https://www.nimss.org/projects/18712  (New project for NC)

General Comments
Agronomic researchers recognize value and capabilities of on-farm investigations using GNSS-controlled field machinery to implement more complex investigations (25 years after the introduction of this equipment).
Authors recognize value in extending structured N field investigations to multiple geographic regions and crops.
Recognize need to collect data to describe y=f(x, c, z) where x is a vectors containing “managed input variables,” c is a vector containing “unmanaged field characteristics,” and z is a vector of “unmanaged and temporally stochastic variables – primarily weather.”

Follows from an existing NIFA funded project led by David Bullock – Data-Intensive Farm Management (DIFM).
Coined new term - On-Farm Precision Experimentation (OFPE).
Some overlap with NCERA 180, SERA 17, SERA 46, NC 1195, S 1069 and W 3009; although more focused on the methodology for conducting on-farm research and analyzing data. I do not see a conflict.
Proposal strong on developing process. Many elements are long-term. However, authors do define success at the conclusion of the 5-year proposal period.

Concerns/Suggestions
Proposal is strong on use of web-based technologies and data analytics for designing, collecting, cleaning, and analyzing data. Partnership with private sector is referenced – laudable. How will project engage computer science expertise?
Proposal implies data quality/integrity but focuses more on cleaning/pre-processing than solving problems up front via calibration.
Proposal does not address limitations of equipment used to conduct field investigations.
Project would benefit from integrations of more computer science and engineering participants.
Long-term potential is significant given opportunities for industry engagement and re-envisioning of the role of Cooperative Extension.
Recommend approval with minor modifications.
Research Data Alliance – international
Interest Group on Agricultural Data (FAO)
The committee approved the recommendation.

Paul Heinemann
NCERA197 (NCERA_temp197), Agricultural Safety and Health Research and Extension, https://www.nimss.org/projects/18703

Comments:
This is a small but very important community. Considering that safety and health in agricultural production and other related industries continues to be hazardous, and the fact that there are so few organizations and individuals addressing this, this project will continue to be a key in helping to coordinate activities between institutions. The proposal captures the essence of the group's intentions for the next five years. Right now, it seems that there should be more people involved; The project it is replacing has 25 individuals listed, so I assume that more participants will be added as the project gets confirmed. The narrative states that 1862, 1890, and 1994 land grant institutions will be
encouraged to participate, so the key people in the committee should reach out to ensure that all of these are represented, if possible.
The committee approved the recommendation.

Review Assignments - Midterm Reviews:

Steve Mickelson
NC170, Personal Protective Technologies for Current and Emerging Occupational and Environmental Hazards, https://www.nimss.org/projects/18359
The committee has been successful in holding annual meetings, either face-to-face or through teleconferencing. Participation in the annual meetings was strong. They are actively pursuing projects at each university to address the project objectives and have been successful in creating strong collaborations with industry and other organizations. They are in the early stages of their research and product development related to PPE. Overall, progress has been made in each objective area. The committee member has each made progress in their own areas of study. Collaboration with firefighter agencies and technology industries was reported. Although the technical committee is sharing their individual study findings, there is little evidence of collaborative research and working together on projects. Nine member universities developed and piloted methods for a national 3D anthropometric survey of firefighters. There is also no evidence of working with other multistate programs. Efforts should be made to begin delivering accomplishments to peer groups and stakeholders moving forward. There is little to no evidence of external funding from federal or state agencies. Most of the support is coming from local agencies. There seems to be interest by the technical members in using early data to pursue national research funding, but no documentation was provided. It appears that from the current impacts that the members are positioned to obtain external funding moving forward. The committee has been very successful in publishing peer-reviewed journal papers and scientific/outreach presentations. More efforts should be placed on delivering results of their research to industry, organization, and other stakeholders. More collaboration between institutions would strengthen the plans and accomplishments.
The committee approved the recommendation.