February 10, 2021 Minutes

Southern Administrative Heads Winter Zoom Meeting

Wednesday, February 10, 2021, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Minutes

Participants:

1. Cornerstone Update – Hunt Shipman and Jim Richards (PowerPoint Presentation)
   1. COVID V legislation is current major effort in House with multiple committees involved
      1. Senate will likely modify the House version
      2. $4 Billion for agriculture is in current version and House Ag Committee is marking it up now
      3. Provision for disadvantaged producers to reduce or eliminate their federal debt and make access to credit easier
      4. Funds for minority serving institutions (1980, 1994, insular, Hispanic serving)
      5. Working to include the 1862’s because it will take the whole LGU system to address the needs of disadvantaged producers
      6. Draft of bill was released Feb. 9 and it’s moving fast through Congress
   2. Some efforts in both sides to bring earmarks back, if it happens, it will change how we do advocacy and make it more complicated
   3. FT 22 budget request will be and 8% increase in all BAA priority lines, unless President’s budget is higher
   4. President’s budget is not expected out anytime soon, probably will be released initially as a framework with details to follow in Spring
   5. An infrastructure information webinar was held today with the Farm Bureau, other webinars are planned with key advocacy groups, including Rebuild America
2. Infrastructure Advocacy Strategy – Tom Coon (PowerPoint Presentation and Handout)
   1. Advocating for $11.5 Billion for all kinds of infrastructure projects
   2. Must have a champion identified soon in both House and Senate for this to go anywhere
   3. Also need many influential group, public and private, supporting us, so there will be a lot of informational webinars for various groups over the next month or so.
3. BAA Update – Doug Steele (PowerPoint Presentation)
   1. NIFA is going to form a Capacity Funding Working Group, so some of our current Capacity Funding Committee will integrate into that group
   2. BAA has been asked to join the new Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance that consists of state, federal, and public/private organizations, we will not be a founding member, but will have a seat on the Steering Committee
   3. Three very important interactions with NIFA this year
      1. Capacity Funding Working Group
      2. Project Café implementation
      3. Blue Ribbon Panel on review the structure and function of the LGU system
4. Southern Mini Land-Grant Update – Eric Young
   1. May 16-19, 2022, Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center, College Station, TX.
   2. Begins on Monday afternoon with optional tour, probably around 2:00. Conference starts with reception/dinner Monday evening and goes thru Thursday morning.
   3. Same general schedule, individual association meetings all day Tuesday and Thursday morning, joint session with everyone all day Wednesday.
   4. New aspect – CARET has requested to meet jointly with each of the other associations for 45 min to an hour. Also, other individual associations want to meet jointly with each other.
   5. Following joint meetings are schedule on Tuesday or Thursday with individual association meetings:
      1. CARET with each of the other associations, including S-AHS
      2. SAAESD and ASRED
      3. ASRED and S-APS
      4. AEA and ARD
      5. SAAESD and ARD
      6. SAAESD and S-APS
   6. AgriLife conference office will have an electronic Save the Date card ready to send out prior to the CARET/AHS meeting end of this month.
   7. We will be discussing the registration fee at our March meeting.
   8. Associations that do now already have a member on the committee (other than an ED) will add a member by April, which is when we’ll begin planning Wednesday’s joint program.
      1. Nancy Cox has agreed to represent the S-AHS.
      2. We will be asking you in the next couple of months for topic suggestions for Wednesday session.
   9. The S-AHS schedule currently is to meet jointly with CARET after the morning break on Tuesday until lunch, then meet separately Tuesday afternoon.
   10. We could also meet separately before meeting with CARET and we could hold an optional meeting time Thursday morning in case we need to discuss something after the joint session.
5. NIFA Update – Carrie Castille, Parag Chitnis and Faith Peppers
   1. Carrie thanked Scott Angle for his great service as NIFA director and his hard work during the whole move to Kansas City, she also thanked Parag for being an excellent interim Director
   2. New priorities from USDA
      1. Leverage science, data, research and extension to end pandemic
      2. Rebuild the economy
      3. Improve equity and ending discrimination internally and in services to public
      4. Address wide spread nutrition insecurity
      5. Put food, agriculture and forestry at the center of climate change solutions
      6. Build a more resilient food system for producers of all sizes and cultures
   3. My vision for the future is yours and yours is mine, we need to develop a vision together
   4. I’m looking at all the input from Project Café and keeping track of progress on the project dashboard, which you can also view at https://nifa.usda.gov/project-cafe
   5. Some wins so far from Project Café include new tools and processes, enhanced efficiency and customer service, and better responsiveness and accountability
   6. We’ve initiated 70 projects for improvement and their progress can be watched on the Dashboard
   7. Budget
      1. Really would like fewer lines in NIFA’s budget, it’s very complex and not very flexible
      2. Received $500,000 to develop a public/private partnership for data storage and sharing
      3. Received $300,000 to fund a Blue Ribbon Panel to review the structure and function of the Land-Grant system
   8. Reporting requires too much paperwork, but it’s getting better with the new system that will replace REEport
   9. A capacity Program Team will be be formed to determine how to reduce regulatory reviews and streamline processes, LGU members will be invited to join this effort
   10. One big challenge has been that the relocation and re-staffing has been almost completely during the pandemic with most new people working remotely, which has hindered building teams and comradery internally and externally
   11. NIFA is very committed to the LGU family and our partnership and we look forward to being able to interact more normally again in the future
   12. Parag Chitnis – Blue Ribbon Panel funds will be awarded to an institution to host the panel and manage expenses
   13. Keith Coble – If productivity is an important goal, we need ERS to restart their regular productivity reports so that data is available
6. Election of New S-ASH Secretary – Tim Cross
   1. Nominee from Summer meeting is Doze Butler, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
   2. Paul Paterson moved that nominations be closed and Doze elected by acclimation, Mark Cochran seconded, motion passed unanimously
   After this meeting, Robert Taylor will become Chair and Keith Belli will be Chair-elect
   3. Robert and Keith will be our representatives on the national AHS Executive Committee
7. Summer Southern AHS/CARET meeting – Keith Belli
   1. Southern AHS/CARET summer meeting will be held in Clemson, SC, July 30 – Aug 1, hosted by Clemson University and South Carolina State University
   2. Potential tour stops include research farms around Clemson, experimental forest, and dairy
8. Institutional Updates – All
   1. Compiled institutional updates can be seen here
9. Meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm