Annual Meeting of the Advisory Council
Hartford, CT October 7 & 8, 2003
A. Meeting participants
Advisory Council members
John Ayers, Phil Benedict, William Coli, James Dill, Michael Fitzne,r
Lloyd Garcia, David Handley, Zane Helsel, Lebelle Hicks, Mike Hoffmann,
Carol Holko, Rob Koethe, Abbott Lee, Tracy Leskey, Rosemary Loria,
Edith Lurvey, Mary Kay Malinoski, Dyremple Marsh, Luke McConnell,
Audrey Moore, Glenn Morin, Therese Murtagh, Iliana Rivas, Robert Seem,
Marc Teffeau, James VanKirk, Joellen Zeh
Guests and staff: Andrea Sylvain of EPA Region 1, Patricia.M.Douglass
of USDA - APHIS, Elizabeth Thomas, Northeastern IPM Center, Elizabeth
Myers, Northeastern IPM Center
See also: Advisory Council Roster
B. Review of Progress
Website: Use is not overwhelming, but is satisfactory.
Webtrends report distributed as part of the workbook not available here.
Publications
- Printed examples included in the workbook
- Newsletter articles about related organization: Discussion regarding
issue of consultants or other private sector members of the NEIPMC
promoting themselves through NEIPMC. We need to be sure any Center
publicity about these people is clearly linked to Center goals.to
clearly link articles like this clea, consider including a disclaimer
in the newsletter to cover this.
- Press releases – It would be helpful to send press releases to
the AC members with “open hooks” for members to insert personalized
info about their own organizations (adding names of individuals in
the states). This could get the release published in more local venues.
Liz M would call these out in the release with “[suggested local hook…
– insert here]”. see recent
press release
State Network Projects -
Project
leaders
Progress
reports
Crop profiles and Pest Management Strategic Plans
Recent
and pending progress
IPM Working Groups–
Rosters
Progress reports
IWG priorities for research and extension
IWG leader priorities:
Suggestions made by the IWG leaders as a group for the Center to better
facilitate the mission of IWGs (MS Word download).
Discussion:Initially asked to identify IPM priorities for the region.
Lack of funding to pay leaders or follow through on ideas partially
limited their success in the first grant. In the next round of funding
these groups will have base funding and access to a greater amount
of competitive funding. Group accountability needs to be written into
new rfa. This was not the case in the past. Other regional centers
are emulating these groups.
AC Recommendations
At the previous meeting, February 2003, the Advisory Council made
a number of recommendations. A workbook
page indicates what has been done in the interim to address these
recommendations.
C. Mission Statement
Background: Center staff created the first draft and sent to SC members
for feedback. The attributes of a mission statement are that it stand
alone, tell who we are, contain our organizational values, and be understood
by the public. It does not necessarily need to be in one sentence.
The AC had a full and frank discussion of the mission statement, including
appointment of an evening work group to integrate changes in the proposed
language (Marc Teffeau, Bill Coli, Joellen Zeh, Liz Myers and Jim VanKirk).
The discussion was carried into the Steering Committee meeting the
following week, and the Mission Statement was ratified there. It is:
The Northeastern Integrated
Pest Management Center fosters the development and adoption of IPM,
a science-based approach to managing pests in ways that generate economic,
environmental, and human health benefits to all citizens. We work
in partnership with stakeholders from agricultural, urban, and rural
settings to identify and address regional priorities for research,
education and outreach.
D. NEREAP and NEIPMC
Background:In the mid 1970’s each state appointed
an IPM coordinator and in the Northeast by the late ‘70’s they began
meeting annually as a group to compare programs, funding, and strategies.
About 8 years ago, the directors of extension and research stations
decided to broaden the representation of each state by adding more researchers
and key agencies. Flat funding over the years created problems. Additional
funds came in through the Pesticide Impact Assessment Program (PIAP)
which had money for pesticide surveys and crop profiles, both documents
needed by EPA. The PIAP program was dissolved 4 years ago and 3 years
ago the Pest Management Centers were formed with part of their function
to provide surveys/CPs/PMSPs along with other items on their agenda.
Now the name has again changed slightly to the Integrated Pest Management
Centers. At the last meeting of NEREAP, the question emerged as to how
NEREAP and NEIPMC will fit together and what is the role of the IPM
coordinator now that the NEIPMC exists.
Discussion: Over the course of discussion, very clear
consensus of the group emerged, without dissent, that the Northeastern
IPM Center and NEREAP-IPM each retain important functions and roles
and should work together. Carol Holko drafted and the AC accepted a
statement of support by the Center for NEREAP-IPM; the AC recommended
that this statement be distributed to all appropriate groups and individuals.
Later, the Steering Committee approved the following statement, essentially
unchanged from the AC draft, and directed that it be distributed to
Northeast research and extension directors, to the national IPM Program
Leader, and to NEREAP-IPM:
The Northeastern IPM Center
depends on NEREAP-IPM for crucial research and outreach support of
IPM programs that benefit all stakeholders in the region. Individually,
the IPM coordinators offer state-level focus and accountability for
programmatic initiatives. As a group, NEREAP acts as a conduit for
specialized expertise, technical capability, and historical perspectives
that are unique to land grant universities and essential to the success
of the Center.
E. Advisory Council Guidelines
AC accepted the draft guidelines shown below. A suggestion was made
to include media representative on the AC, but consensus on this was
not reached by the group.
Proposed AC membership guidelines:
- AC membership size will remain between 30 and 32 members to keep
cost down and to allow for meeting efficiency.
- Stagger membership turnover using 3-year renewable terms. Change
of 8 members each year would keep some institutional memory and keep
the majority of the members familiar with NEIPMC past progress.
- Replace inactive members automatically after the 3 years with someone
from their representative group.
- Formally include Working Group representation of 2 leaders per AC
meeting rotating on a 2-year renewable rotation.
- Provide AC members with a description of their responsibilities.
(available online)
- All AC members will be compensated for all appropriate expenses
incurred during travel for AC business.
F. Plant Diagnostic Centers
Rose Loria, Cornell and Director of the Northeastern Plant Diagnostic
Network, made a presentation and led a discussion on NE PDN. The plant
diagnostic network (PDN) was developed by CSREES in response to biosecurity
threats. They have a national database and communications network linking
the diagnostic centers in the region and across the nation. There are
5 regions paralleling the IPM Center regions with the North Central
region split into 2 areas in the PDN. More
info on the NEPDN web site.
G. CABI (Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International)
Background: Among other accomplishments, this organization has created
a comprehensive database of information regarding pests and their control
for crops throughout the world. Until now, there has been a charge for
this service, but recently CSREES bought 2000 access licenses that will
be available to faculty and staff at any land grant university. APHIS
also has site licenses. With 2000 visitors allowed at any one time,
the site should be easily accessible. Look for developments on accessability
during early 2004.
H.Evaluation
In the first proposal (NEPMC, fy2000), there is a statement that the
AC will do an evaluation of the Center’s progress, but little else specific.
Early on in the life of the Center, there was little to evaluate, but
now may be the appropriate timing to set this up. The evaluation could
be based on the original milestones from the proposal, but some of these
have changed or are not relevant for an evaluation. If evaluating on
grant objectives the categories would be too broad. We need to decide
on criteria for evaluation.
Discussion included the idea of hiring someone unconnected to the Center
to undertake an evaluation;Marc Teffeau might be able to make a recommendation
for evaluator; focus on deliverables and Center goals in the evaluation;
I. Northeastern IPM Center Proposal Review
John Ayers reviewed the highlights of the proposal that led to Center
funding. Brief discussion followed. An abbreviated version of the proposal
is available here as a downloadable
MS Word file.
J. Request for Applications (RFA)
John Ayers reviewed the draft RFA included in the work book (rather
than link to the draft, which is no longer pertinent, the final
RFA can be accessed online.) Discussion by the AC followed. Ideas
that finally emerged as generally having consensus of the AC include:
State Network Projects should be required to interact with 1890's
institutions (in states that have them)
Project types should be associated with ranges of $ available
Be very clear in stating that the panel has discretion about which
projects to fund and can carry over money not spent
Cut the Special Projects project type and use the funds for it to
distribute among other funds and improve flexibility
K. IPM Working Groups
Issues about working groups: We had a slow start in recruiting, mission
was not clear and parts of the mission ("agroecological boundaries")
were since rendered moot. Original budget included only annual meeting,
but we manufactured a small rolling grants pool out of savings elsewhere.
Other IPM Centers are following our lead, with adjustments. They are
not necessarily setting WGs along commodity lines - perhaps we should
fund needs instead of commodities. (e.g., how to rescue a park). At
the national meeting there was some good discussion about groups being
more effective when they are task oriented with clearly defined mission.
L. Critical Issues
Inconclusive and brief discussion about how critical are or should
be defined.
M. Biannual Regional Conference
We have budgeted $50,000 for each of 2 regional conferences, in 2005
and 2007. How to proceed from there is open for discussion.
Some ideas that came out of the AC discussion:
- Partner as much as possible when bringing this together. Possibly
target toward government officials, local and state.
- We need NEREAP to buy in, as well as extension directors, ESA, etc.
- Privatization/commercialization of IPM could be a topic.
- Visioning process could happen at the conference. Not just land
grants would be involved.
- Bring public officials together – politicians and elected officials.
- Previous conference in Simmsbury, CT, on whole-farm systems showed
IPM in practice. That was really good. It served as a reality check
for people in the field.
- NRAES is a possibility.
- Volunteers for conference subcommittee: Dave Handley, Mike Hoffmann,
Rob Koethe, Audrey Moore, Dyremple Marsh, Jim VanKirk
N. Acronyms Commonly Used in Context of Northeastern IPM Center
see the file developed by Liz Thomas (MS
Word download)
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