In the next 30 years, the world's population is projected to grow by nearly 2 billion and will become more urbanized, with a more skilled workforce. The good news is that global prosperity and affluence will increase.
At the same time, the challenge will be a food supply that needs to be more than doubled in order to meet the increasing demand. Specifically, the demand for animal-sourced foods will need to be more than doubled to meet the demands of the newly affluent.

At the 2014 Joint Annual Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association and the American Society of Animal Science, Donald Nkrumah with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, Wash., explained that with fewer and fewer people engaged in agriculture, and for the sake of the planet, animal production growth cannot continue to come from the deployment of more animals and land.

Some have argued that current organic systems may be for the rich and curious and could not produce enough food to feed the world in the future. Past technologies that allowed us to advance productivity may not be enough to bring about future intensification, especially for small holders who live in areas that require attention to climatic adaptability and disease resiliency, said Nkrumah. Instead, changes in total factor productivity will need to occur through significant changes in current techniques, he said.

To transform current near-subsistence small holder production systems, Nkrumah said technological innovation will be required to drive the needed sustainable productivity increases. That means collaborative global research teams must strive to come up with new ways of developing and adapting modern concepts in biotechnology to create the next-generation of animal genetics, health, and livestock nutrition systems. These technologies will then have to be deployed affordably through context-relevant mobile communication and digital platforms to increase accessibility.

We hope that you enjoyed the added coverage of the JAM that was provided through our daily editions from Kansas City.  Thanks to Sarah Muirhead and members of the Feedstuff staff for making in possible and for the great work that they did in covering many presentations.  A special thanks to a great group from our Graduate Student Division (GSD) who provided added coverage of many sessions.  In case you missed their bylines, they were:

Amanda Stone - University of Kentucky

Adam Geiger - Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Barbara Wadsworth - University of Kentucky

Di Liang - University of Wisconsin - Madison

Karmella Dolecheck - University of Kentucky

Catie Cramer - University of Wisconsin - Madison

Matthew Borchers - University of Kentucky

We look forward to seeing you at the 2015 JAM in Orlando.  It's not too early to start making plans the homepage for the meeting is already open.

Meeting the Present and Future Demand for Employees with a PhD in Dairy Science -
The ADSA Foundation Symposium

A large (standing room only at times), diverse audience attended the Symposium confirming the interest in the subject matter and its importance to students, industry and academia. The complexity of the situation became evident as the presentations and discussion progressed.  An often overlooked part of the equation is that while industry wants and needs PhD's, academia is also facing significant challenges in maintaining the faculty needed to train new PhD's.  Through budget constraints, retirement and attrition faculty positions at universities are going unfilled for extended periods or being lost.  This makes it difficult or impossible to train the new PhD's that are needed for the future. We need to both assure that students being trained have the skill sets needed, but also that we have the fiscal and personnel resources needed to provide the training. 

Industry representatives highlighted some of the needs and the reasons for those needs. 

• PhD knowledge and innovation are needed to meet the needs of a growing world population
• Industry needs for PhD employees cover the spectrum from discovery work to application
• Globalization brings increased complexity and increased needs to deal with political, regulatory and environmental issues that often require PhD level skills
• Sustainability needs coupled with changing consumer demands and interests are driving changes in talent needs.

Industry is looking for:

• People with a connection to industry who understand why what they do is important and who understand the supply chain with a commodity perspective
• Global experience is valuable
• Deeper technical knowledge is important, but multidisciplinary approaches are needed too
• Interpersonal and business skills including a working knowledge of higher level statistics are more important than ever for success. 
• Communication and problem solving skills are critical.

Industry is aware of the financial challenges faced by universities and is willing to provide support, but they often would like to identify or help identify the students to be trained and often like to see work that is likely to benefit the company. Industry internships for both undergraduate and graduate students were seen as positive ways to build relationships and provide students with a better perspective in choosing their career path. Other externships and short-term employment opportunities exist that could be expanded as well. 

From an academic perspective, many challenges exist.  State and federal funding continue to erode resulting in higher student fees. Faculty members leave the university for higher salaries offered elsewhere or the challenge of new start up opportunities. Competitive grants are critical to the university and the faculty members, but have a large overhead in researcher and staff time. Frequently several hundred hours per grant are required to make the application and in most cases a very small proportion are funded. Industry and commodity funding support for students and projects is needed and appreciated, but also bring challenges. 

• The funding is often for a limited time, less than that required to train a student so multiple grants are needed to complete a degree. This results in a lack of focus in a program for the student and the researcher.  As a result students don't have as much opportunity to develop critical skills and become a leader in their field.
• These challenges often limits creativity for students and faculty working with them
• The support often has limited funding of the indirect costs universities incur in training students.  They need up to date equipment, facilities and maintenance of both as well as personnel support to provide the training that have few other ways of being met. 

Overall there was an increased awareness of the needs and challenges that exist and interest in working to address them.  There was strong interest in the group for a follow up session at JAM 2015 to look at progress that is made and explore new ways to address the needs.

USDA Announces Formation of FFAR Board

On July 23^rd, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the initial members of the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR).  Authorized by Congress as part of the 2014 Farm Bill, the foundation will operate as a non-profit corporation seeking and accepting private donations in order to fund research activities that focus on problems of national and international significance. Congress also provided $200 million for the foundation which must be matched by non-federal funds as the Foundation identifies and approves projects.

The Farm Bill directed USDA and the National Academies of Science to develop lists of nominees for the board.  The Farm Bill also named five ex-officio members and tasked them with making the selection of the initial board members.  The ex-officio members named in the Farm Bill are:

• The Honorable Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture
• Dr. Catherine Woteki, USDA's Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics and Chief Scientist
• Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, Administrator of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service
• Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, Director of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Dr. France A. Córdova, Director of the National Science Foundation.

The initial members of the FFAR board will be:

• Dr. Kathryn Boor - the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University
• Dr. Douglas Buhler - Director of AgBioResearch and Senior Associate Dean for Research for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University
• Dr. Nancy Creamer - Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Agriculture and Community Based Food Systems, North Carolina State University
• Dr. Deborah Delmer - Professor Emeritus of Biology, University of California-Davis
• The Honorable Dan Glickman - former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, current Executive Director of the Aspen Institute's Congressional Program
• Dr. Robert Horsch - Deputy Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Pamela Johnson - Chairwoman, National Corn Growers Association
• Dr. Mark E. Keenum - President, Mississippi State University
• Dr. Michael Ladisch - Director of the Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Purdue University
• Dr. Christopher Mallett - Vice President of Research & Development, Cargill, Inc.
• Dr. Pamela Matson - Chester Naramore Dean of the School of Earth Sciences, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
• Dr. Terry McElwain - Associate Director and Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health, and Executive Director, Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, Washington State University
• Dr. Stanley Prusiner - Director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases and Professor of Neurology, University of California-San Francisco and 1997 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine
• Dr. Yehia "Mo" Saif - Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University
• Dr. Barbara Schaal - Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Biographies of the board members can be found by clicking here.  Of the 15 board members, at least five of them have significant experience with animal science, which will be important to ensure that the animal sciences have a voice as the board sets up the operating structure for the foundation and funding decisions are ultimately made.  It is expected that the newly appointed board will hold its first meeting in the next few weeks.


 

Help the animal and dairy science community and attend JAM 2015 for free, too!

Referrals are the most tried-and-true way businesses grow, and the same is true for the Federation of Animal Science Societies (FASS). Do you know a colleague working with an animal science group that is in need of high-quality, cost-effective support services? Help them out by referring them to Jamie Ritter, FASS Executive Director at jamier@assochq.org.

Help them benefit from the shared resource concept and the 264 years of collective experience the FASS staff have in working with non-profit animal science organizations. If your referral becomes a FASS customer prior to July 1, 2015, ADSA will comp your registration to the 2015 JAM. It's win-win-win. For more information about services offered by FASS, click here.

ADSA is a founding member of FASS.

NEWS FROM S-PAC

We are pleased to announce the addition of 2013 AABP proceedings to S-PAC as well as those from four new conferences:  the Calf Symposium, NEDPA Conference, Herd Health and Nutrition Conference and the Operations Managers Conference. There are now 55 conferences with 495 proceedings available to subscribers.  Check out the full listing at  http://spac.adsa.org.  If you are not already a subscriber, now is a great time to join.

ADSA® on Linked In

Our ADSA Linked In group continues to grow.  We now have 999 members from around the world, are you one of them? It's a great place to network with other dairy professionals from around the world.  Check it out here.