Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops
Vision
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops will focus on tackling pests, diseases and weeds of crops in a climate changed world.
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops will be built on the global platform, PlantVillage, that The Pennsylvania State University has developed in partnership with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UN FAO), Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and National Agricultural Research Organizations (NAROs).
This platform approach will result in a cost-effective, highly efficient Innovation Lab with an integrated system that will enable collaborative research on novel approaches to monitor, predict and combat current and emerging threats to crops in a climate changed world.
The vision of our Current and Emerging Threats to Crops Innovation Lab is “FITTER FARMS in Five years”.
Current threats
For current threats, we following the FITTER approach: Forecast, Inspect, Training of Trainers, Evaluation and Research.
- Forecasting: Enable the use of forecasting systems for biotic and abiotic stressors at the national and regional levels and build capacity for crop threat surveillance and forecasting
- Inspecting: Determine the levels of pests and contribute to improve and update the forecaster.
- Training: Build capacity for managing current threats with Integrated Pest Management (IPM) packages and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud computing, apps, and genetic testing to secure effective monitoring and surveillance (including phylogenomics and stress modeling).
- Training of the Trainers: Build capacities of youth and women for the use of AI-based extension system to empower smallholder farmers and enable them to grow more food
- Evaluation: Evaluate the success of control strategies on pest incidence using initial surveillance strategy.
- Research: Evaluate existing IPM packages or develop new ones; improvement of surveillance tools and forecasting; socioeconomic impact on gender and youth
Emerging threats
For emerging threats, we following the FARMS approach: Forecast, Assess, Research, Market and Surveillance.
- Forecast: Detection of anomalies through crop surveillance, remote sensing, and machine learning.
- Assess: Rapidly assess any detected anomalies and work with local extension agencies and NAROs to manage and confirm new threats.
- Research: Research-driven solutions for the control of confirmed emerging threats. Based on a collective consensus of Technical Committees.
- Market: Engage with the private sector to accelerate market-based solutions.
- Surveillance: Evaluate the different control strategies integrating the issues of gender/youth engagement and socioeconomic implications.
We believe that despite the enormous challenge of tackling biotic stressors (pests, diseases and weeds) against the backdrop of the existential threat of climate change the integration of the cutting edge technology, with strong, youth led local communities means we can have FITTER FARMS in Five years.
Land Grant Partners
Our Innovation Lab brings together
Through UMES we intend to reach out to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutes (MSIs) to better integrate them into our Innovation Lab. The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops intends to play an important role through their activities to support and strengthen MSIs role in international research and development.
Through our activities we would like to enable a close partnership between MIT, MSU, PSU and other 1862 Land Grants with all 1890 HBCUs and other MSIs in research capacity building and students training
Regional Centers
- East/Southern Africa
- West Africa
- Central America
- Asia
Team
External advisory
Dr. Stephan Tubene is a Professor of Agricultural Economics in the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Resource Sciences at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES); and Associate Director of the 1890 Universities Center of Excellence for Global Food Security and Defense (CEGFSD). His research, teaching, and consulting interests include International Agricultural Development, Production Economics, Community and Economic Development, and Global Food Security. Tubene is an international scholar with expertise and experience in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Tubene received his B.S. degree in Agricultural Engineering from the Institut Facultaire des Sciences Agronomiques (IFA), Yangambi in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1987, and his Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Economics from Kansas State University in 1997. He is fluent in English, French, and several African languages.
Prasanna Boddupalli is the Director of Global Maize Program at CIMMYT, and Leader of OneCGIAR Plant Health Initiative. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Prasanna provides technical oversight for an array of multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary projects on development and deployment of elite, multiple stress tolerant and nutritionally enriched maize varieties in the tropics of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, besides application of novel tools and technologies for enhancing genetic gains and breeding efficiency. Prasanna has also served earlier as the Director of CGIAR Research Program MAIZE from 1995 to 2021. He has been at the forefront in designing and implementing integrated approaches for management of Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) in eastern Africa since 2012, and Fall Armyworm in Africa (since 2017) and in Asia (since 2018). The OneCGIAR Plant Health Initiative, led by Prasanna, is being implemented in partnership with over 100 national, regional and international partners, with particular focus on high-impact and/or high-risk crop pests and diseases causing major food security shocks and severe economic impacts in the low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Dr. Maricelis Acevedo is a Research Professor in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University with a joint appointment in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences. She is also the Director of the Feed the Future Insect-Resistant Eggplant Partnership and serves as Associate Director for Science for the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative. Acevedo works side by side with wheat scientists around the world to develop and deliver wheat varieties that are high-yielding and disease-resistant. She also contributes to the wheat breeding and pathology capacities of the National Agriculture Research Programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Asia by providing guidance and support for research infrastructure and providing training opportunities for junior scientists. As a member of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), she is part of a global interdisciplinary network of wheat scientists committed to food security through advances in agriculture and capacity building. In her role as Director for USAID Feed the Future Insect-Resistant Eggplant Partnership, she leads the efforts to develop and adopt Bt-eggplant in Bangladesh and the Philippines.
Before joining Cornell, Acevedo was the cereal rust pathologist and assistant professor in the Plant Pathology Department at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND. At NDSU, she taught a graduate course on Population Biology of Plant Pathogens and mentored four Ph.D. and three master’s students. She has published numerous original research scientific manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, one book chapter, and many outreach and extension manuscripts.
Her formal education includes a BS in Biology and an MSc in Crop Improvement from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. She earned a Ph.D. (2007) in Biology with a specialization in Plant Pathology from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the USDA-ARS Potato and Small Grains Research Unit in Aberdeen, Idaho. In 2010 she was among the first recipients of the Jeanie Laube Borlaug Women in Triticum Early Career Award.
Acevedo is originally from Puerto Rico, where her parents live on a small farm in the town of San Sebastian, on the northwest side of the Island.
Dr. Ristaino is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at NC State University. She works on the population genetics of the pathogen that caused the Irish famine Phytophthora infestans and studies the population structure and epidemiology of modern day and historic late blight outbreaks. Her lab studies the impact of migration, recombination and hybridization on the evolution of Phytophthora species. Her work has tracked historic migrations of P. infestans from its ancestral home in the Andes to the US and Europe. She developed pioneering research techniques for use of 150-year-old herbarium specimens to track epidemics. She was also part of the team that sequenced the first genome of P. infestans. Her recent work has used next generation sequencing to study historical outbreaks. Her lab manages the disease surveillance network called USABlight.org. This system records late blight outbreaks, sends disease alerts to growers, and provides decision support tools for managing disease. She has developed sensor technology for detection of plant pathogens. She also conducts Phytophthora molecular diagnostics workshops globally. Dr. Ristaino was named a National Academy of Sciences Jefferson Science Fellow in 2012 and has worked on a range of emerging plant diseases that impact global food security with USAID. She currently directs the Emerging Plant Disease and Global Food Security cluster at NC State. In 2018, she was awarded a Fulbright Research Scholar Award in at the University of Catania in Sicily and in 2022 was awarded a second Fulbright Award to work on Phytophthora infestans in Ireland. She is a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was awarded the International Service Award from APS. Dr. Ristaino’ research impacts the science of plant pathology, epidemiology, population genomics, food security and science policy.
Dr. Janie Moore is an assistant professor in the biological and agricultural engineering department at Texas A&M University. She leads the successful, externally funded, Post-Harvest Engineering and Education (PHEED) research program focused on post-harvest engineering needs of the food and agricultural industries. She conducts research in the inactivation of mycotoxins and fungal species with post-harvest treatment technologies, and characterization of reaction kinetics in depolymerizing lignin with high-voltage atmospheric cold plasma. She also develops innovative instruction strategies for biological and agricultural engineering and first year engineering students. A 12-year member of the American Society for Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), Moore is a member and leader on a number of ASABE committee, she is the current chair of the Processing Systems Crop and Feed Processing and Storage committee. Moore is also the vice chair of NC-213, a project team of engineers, scientists and economists from leading US land grant universities and government research centers that conduct research to create and disseminate the technical knowledge needed to manage quality food safety and bio-security efficiently in world grain. Throughout her career, Moore has received a number of awards, including the NC 213 Andersons Cereals and Oilseeds Early-in-Career award, Montague Center for Teaching Excellence Scholars in 2020, an ASABE Presidential Citation for outstanding leadership and service in the formation of the BIPOC in ASABE, and she was also awarded the inaugural Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Award from the ASABE for her constant efforts and great accomplishments in inclusion, diversity, equity, and access.