The National Institute of Food and Agriculture: Addressing the agricultural impacts of and vulnerabilities to climate change

There can be no doubt that agricultural, forestry, and range production systems and natural systems are dramatically affected by climate variability and change. Producers, land managers, and other decision makers need information, technologies, and decision-support tools about greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, adaptation strategies, and policy outcomes. Crop, animal, forest, range, and even urban and rural management approaches must take climate variability into account to implement adaptation strategies and improve sustainability over the long term. The potential for forests and agricultural lands to serve as carbon (C) sinks and to reduce GHG emissions must be quantified to support sound policies and environmental markets. Outreach and extension networks must be implemented to employ climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in management practices and to use scientific findings for restoration projects, planning, interventions, and prescriptions. The 2008 Farm Bill passed by the United States Congress called for the establishment of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). As a replacement for the former Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, NIFA had a new mandate to serve as USDA's extramural science agency. Under its flagship competitive grants program, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), NIFA identified a set of grand…