NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing next generation agriculture in Southern Georgia (GA)

该区域创新引擎发展奖的重点是南乔治亚州的农业。农业每年对格鲁吉亚产生740亿美元的影响，是改善该地区社区繁荣和生活质量的关键。该发展奖的重点是强大的，适应性的农村创新，将利用格鲁吉亚的两所赠地大学（佐治亚大学（UGA）和谷堡州立大学）和社区资产，以建立一个综合农业（IA）基础设施“到位”。IA是指具有环境、经济、社会和代际可持续性的农业系统。“到位”意味着与当地社区合作，在人们居住的地方建立资本：南乔治亚州一个20个县的地区，拥有约65万居民。这一努力将通过发展奖的六个相互关联的“齿轮”——经济发展、社区、就地创新、劳动力发展、以用途为导向的研究和生活质量——在该地区建立长期的弹性。这一愿景将通过由地方政府、学校、社区学院、行业和非营利合作伙伴组成的可信赖的社区网络来实现。格鲁吉亚的小型特种作物农场在技术、劳动力、农民多样性、决策和资源方面面临着独特的挑战。通过以使用为灵感的研发，农民将利用这一努力开发一个新的人工智能生态系统。项目将转化精准农业、农业增值制造、可再生能源、可持续和弹性基础设施以及电动交通领域的前沿研究。UGA的合作推广是一个值得信赖的社区合作伙伴，深深扎根于所有20个县，将确保努力由社区需求驱动并响应社区需求。两家专门从事农村经济发展的非营利组织——农村创新中心（Center on rural Innovation）和VentureWell将与推广机构合作，最终与社区合作，通过翻译该团队的实用启发研究成果，加强社区经济并使其多样化。“发展奖”亦有助团队培育本地企业精神和培育创新文化，以推出符合本地社区需要的产品概念。这种就地创新的方法可以缓解自动化程度提高导致的农村人口减少。该团队的劳动力发展计划，与乔治亚州技术学院系统共同创建并通过美国农业部的见解交付，将为新的生态系统提供所需的熟练劳动力和创新者，同时带来生活质量的可衡量改善。该团队的创新包容委员会将与社区领导密切合作，让服务不足的群体参与创新生态系统。在计划期结束时，团队的深度社区参与和就地创新战略将发展出关系、同理心和知识，为成功的NSF引擎提供动力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on agriculture in Southern Georgia. With a $74 billion annual impact in Georgia, agriculture is key to improving community prosperity and quality of life in the region. This Development Award is focused on robust, adaptive rural innovation that will leverage Georgia's two land grant universities (University of Georgia (UGA) and Fort Valley State University) and community assets to build an Integrative Agriculture (IA) infrastructure "in place." IA means farming systems with environmental, economic, social, and intergenerational sustainability. "In place" means teaming with local communities to build capital where people live: a 20-county region in South Georgia with diverse population of ~650,000 residents. The effort will create long-term resiliency in the region through the Development Award's six interlocking "gears"-economic development, community, innovation-in-place, workforce development, use-inspired research, and quality of life. This vision will be realized through trusted community networks of local government, schools, community colleges, industry and nonprofit partners.Georgia's small specialty crop farms face unique challenges in technology, labor, farmer diversity, decision-making, and resources. Through use-inspired R&D, farmers will leverage this effort to develop a new IA ecosystem. Projects will translate cutting-edge research in precision agriculture, value-added agricultural manufacturing, renewable energy, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, and e-mobility. UGA's Cooperative Extension, a trusted community partner deeply embedded in all 20 counties, will ensure that the effort is driven by and responsive to community needs. Two nonprofits with expertise in rural economic development, the Center on Rural Innovation and VentureWell, will partner with extension agents, and ultimately communities, to strengthen and diversify community economies with translation of the team's use-inspired research. The Development Award will also enable the team to cultivate local entrepreneurialism and foster an innovation culture to bring forth product concepts to meet the local needs of the communities. This innovation-in-place approach can mitigate rural depopulation caused by increased automation. The team's workforce development programs, co-created with and delivered though the Technical College System of Georgia, with US Department of Agriculture insights, will provide the skilled workforce and innovators required for the new ecosystem, while concomitantly leading to measurable improvements in quality of life. The team's Council for Innovative Inclusion will work closely with community leadership to engage the underserved in the innovation ecosystem. By the end of the planning period, the team's strategy of deep community engagement and innovation-in-place will have developed the relationships, empathy, and knowledge needed to fuel a successful NSF Engine.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.