Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

NC1178 2019/2020 annual report attached in file below.

Minutes:

• Meetings started at 7:07 (Guam time) (4:07 Kansas). 

• Attendees: DeAnn Presley (Kansas), Mohammad Golabi (Guam), Sindhu Jagadamma, Mahdi Al- Kaisi (Iowa), Sandeep Kumar (South Dakota), Navdeep Singh (south Dakota), Rattan Lal (Ohio), Gary Pierzynski, Rongzhong, Noormets Asko, Fugen Dou, Francisco Arriaga (Wisconsin) Larry Cihacek (NDSU), Mike Mulvaney.
• Minutes from the 2019 was reviewed and moved to approved. Lal moved to approve and Dr. Cihacek seconded and the minutes was approved by the members.
• Gary Pierzynski, the administrative advisor to the group spoke about the program (Multi-State NC 1178), regarding the processes and he also praised the group for their progress. He was pleased with the membership of the group, indicating that there are 20 members listed in the group. He also talked about the move and relocation of NIFA.  He also talked about future funding for research and extension.
• Lal was recognized for receiving his prize for his accomplishments in agriculture and also for serving this committee for so many years (33 years)
• Larry Cihacek presented a brief history of the NC-1178 for the period of 1978 -2020.
• There was some discussion about blogging about Agriculture by people who are not agriculturist (World research Institute).
• Francisco asked some question about NIFA new location and activities.
• Then the following members reported on their projects from their states as the following:
  • Francisco Arriaga – Madison, Wisconsin
  • Larry Cihacek – NDSU
  • Fugen Dou – Texas A&M
  • Noormets Asko – Texas A&M (College Station)
  • Mohammad Golabi – Guam (UOG Research stations)
  • Sindhu Jagadamma – University of Tennessee
  • Sandeep Kumar – SDSU
  • Navdeep Singh – SDSU
  • Rattan Lal – Ohio
  • Mike Mulvaney – University of Florida
  • Rongzhong Ye – Clemson University, South Carolina
  • Mahdi Al-Kaisi – Iowa State. Al-Kaisi announced about his retirement and so he suggested to the committee to recruit some one from the Iowa state to serve as his replacement.  
• Then the group moved to elect their officers: Mohammad Golabi (Guam) was elected as a Chair and Moormets Asko (Texas) was elected a vice-Chair 

The previous vice chair (Mohammad Golabi) was instructed to receive all the reports from individual state members and compile them and generate a summary of all the reports in order to provide a final group report for submitting it to the administrative supervisor (Dr. Gary Pierzynski).

Initially, it was suggested that the next year (2021) meeting should be hosted by the Chair in Guam.  However, it was mentioned that due to the uncertainty about traveling caused by unknown conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guam option was not considered.  However, it was decided that the next year’s (2021) meeting shall be hosted in Kansas City provided that face-to-face meeting was possible. 

Meeting was adjourned:  about 9 am (Guam time).