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<p>Objectives: </p>The global challenges of food, climate, water, energy and health and the economic impacts that underlay all of these issues intersect directly with CFANS. CFANS' primary focus is to do the critical research that will inform society's discussion around these critical challenges facing humanity. <p>Objective 1. Global Food Security and Hunger:Minnesota's agriculture sector provides more than 340,000 jobs for the state and creates $75 billion in economic activity. With the world's food needs expected to double by 2050. Global Food Security is a primary concern for the University of Minnesota and our researchers. CFANS faculty address issues pertaining to Global Food Security and Hunger through research in many areas including crop breeding and genetics, food science, food safety and nutrition and breakthrough agricultural technologies and livestock welfare.</p>Objective 2. Sustainable Energy: Minnesota has been a national leader in sustainable energy initiatives. CFANS researchers are providing a better understanding of the uses of biomass, hydrogen, solar and other renewable technologies including trade-offs, and intersections of opportunities for sustainable energy with agricultural productivity, and environmental health. New sources of bioenergy are continuously being explored including energy from animal waste and algae.</p><p>Objective 3. Climate Change: From Minnesota's agricultural lands to prairies to forests and lakes, Minnesota is an important area to study the effects of climate change due to our diverse ecosystem and weather. Being at the northern edge of the corn belt and the southern edge of the boreal forest, it contains the headwaters of the Mississippi River and the Great lakes and is part of three continental watersheds, makes Minnesota an important research area for evaluating climate change impact and the mitigation and adaptation needed to maintain agricultural productivity and natural resources in to the future. CFANS researchers are exploring how climate change will affect our diverse forests, and wildlife as well as exploring alternative cropping systems and developing new varieties of crops with climate adaptable traits. </p><p>Objective 4. Health and Nutrition: In 2014, Minnesota was ranked as the sixth healthiest state by the United Health Foundation. This is due in large part to Minnesota having one of the lowest obesity and diabetes rates in the nation. By focusing on health and nutrition and taking advantage of the breadth of CFANS and University of Minnesota research capacity, CFANS researchers are able to take a holistic approach to improving the health of Minnesotans and the nation. From linking nutritional goals to plant breeding and genetics to impacting the way our food tastes at the Flavor and Research Education Center to uniting researchers with the broader community with our Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives Institute, our researchers are providing vital information to our industry partners, Minnesotans and the broader nutrition community.Objective 5. Food Safety: The state of Minnesota is committed to investigating and containing contamination related to foodborne illness outbreaks throughout the state and quickly informing Minnesotans of any product concerns. CFANS researchers are able to work closely and collaborate with researchers at Vet Med and the Public School of Health to discover interdisciplinary solutions to food safety concerns. In addition, researchers partner with businesses locally and internationally to ensure food safe protocols and being disseminated and utilized.</p><p>Objective 6. Water Resources: Water quality and quantity are critical issues now and will only increase into the future. As the land of 10,000 Lakes and the mouth the great Mississippi River, Minnesota is a unique area to study water resources and how water can effectively interact with agriculture, natural resources, wildlife and humans. CFANS researchers explore issues related to our states water in a variety of ways. Our Water Resources and Aquatic Invasive Species Center work to protect the quality of our water for future generations and our native aquatic species. Water quality research related to agricultural and industry runoff remains a key concern and will continue to be a focus of CFANS research efforts. </p>
Faculty in the University of Minnesota's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) and the graduate students they train provide ground breaking research in the NIFA research challenge areas of Global Food Security and Hunger, Sustainable Energy, Climate Change, Health and Nutrition, Food Safety, and Water Resources. Many new faculty have their research appointment and potentially a graduate student funding tied to federal Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) funding. Connecting new faculty to this AES project would better describe the CFANS AES research effort in the 12 - 18 months it normally takes to a new faculty member to develop an approved AES project. Developing this collegiate Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES) project around NIFA's six research challenge areas will more adequately enable the MAES to describe the research being conducted during the time between hiring a faculty member and when they have developed an AES project. This approach supports the mission of the MAES to improve Minnesota's agricultural and forest products, horticultural crops, human nutrition, family and community life, and environmental quality.New and early career faculty represent the future of agricultural research for Minnesota. New faculty are active researchers, publish and write grants across a broad range of expertise ranging from animal and plant science to economics to veterinary medicine. These faculty generate and disseminate scientific research that is critical to address the agricultural grand challenges facing Minnesota and the world. A collegiate AES project will more accurate connect faculty new faculty to the work they are doing, result in more accurate reporting of that work including the financial resources allocated to each NIFA priority area.