Northeastern IntegratedPest Management Center Advisory Council Recommendations to Staff From the Albany,NY meeting on February 3-4, 2003

This page addresses recommendations made by the Advisory Council at the February 2003 meeting and developments regarding them as of the October 2003 meeting. This page is written for the web on December 11, 2003, so may also reflect developments since the October meeting.

Mission Statement

Recommendation Feb. 2003	Progress Since Since
Develop a formal Center-wide mission statement	Mission statement draft prepared for this meeting.

Advisory Council Membership

Recommendation	Progress Since
Create relatively formal policies to encourage appropriate turnover of participation and leadership in the Advisory Council and all Working Groups. Stagger terms using 3-year renewable term.	On the agenda for this meeting.
replace currently inactive members	Done
formally include Working Group representation	Done: Mary Kay Malinoski (community) & Dave Handley (fruit)
add NRCS, APHIS representation	Done: Lloyd Garcia (APHIS), Barry Frantz (NRCS)
Keep AC this size the same (~32) to keep cost down and to allow meetings to move along	37
Use AC listserv to communicate to all AC. Include representatives from WGs and IPM Coordinators	nepmcac-l@cornell

NEREAP-IPM

Recommendation	Progress Since
Develop a better relationship with NEREAP-IPM including a joint meeting between them and the center AC representatives.	Working group to develop a white paper on relationship between NEREAP-IPM and Northeastern IPM Center has been created.
Poll whole NEREAP-IPM group for input into rfa.	NEREAP-IPM has input through its representatives on the AC and the SC.

Web site

Recommendation

Progress Since

Intertwine NEPMC and Northeast IPM sites; Web site should link to state level activities; Promote web sites as a clearinghouse of information to prevent duplication; Clean up sites so visitors can find information within 3 clicks; Website needs to have IPM funded projects page including projects outside of the regional IPM grants program; Find where other agencies, consultants, etc are they finding their information now and why (in order for us to improve our site); Include a search function to cover the linked sites; Consider posting “guest book” in site to allow visitors to be put on On Target and Newsletter mailing lists

Several of these recommendations are already in place. Center is actively involved with Spider Graphics Corporation to integrate the two sites and optimize usability.

Communication/Publication

Recommendation	Progress Since
Maintain production and distribution of printed publications Combine the current “Northeast IPM News” and “In the Center” into one publication Publications should progress toward providing more content about research and extension work in the region and less administrative content about how the Center is constructed Target appropriate publications to receive Center newsletters. Remove mainstream media and focus on grower and Ag organization publications Leave out reporting on crops that are of interest to limited states e.g. cranberries. Focus instead on more prevalent crops or issues. Market the Center to other groups; what’s in it for them? Linkages, communications, etc. Include key people from different agencies in Center mailing list and other communications first so they can understand what we do. Keep in contact with state and regional conservationist.	Center has combined previous 2 newsletters in 1, "Northeast IPM News" with an insert "In the Center". Distribution list has been refined somewhat.
Consider targeting legislators with a separate printed pub formatted as a 1-page list of bulleted-items that can also include specific news items targeted at each state. Send 2-4 issues per year	Legislative updates, targeted twice annually to each state, were planned in the new grant proposal. Since then we have put this project on hold due to limited human resources.

State Network Projects

Recommendation	Progress Since
Reduce overhead charges which represent a significant expense with sub-contracts.	Northeastern IPM Center is not legally able to limit indirect charges further than they already are by USDA. We have structured our plans for new subcontracts to limit the project-wide indirect cost.
Funding of IN projects may be more service contract oriented i.e. as set amount of money allotted for certain services provided such as maintaining a person to answer pest management questions, manage the web site, publish PM bulletins, etc. $8000/year is not enough.	New RFA will more completely outline the expectations of states network projects.
Crop profiles and PMSPs would require additional set amounts of funds to complete. Funding for crop profiles and PMSPs can be competitive outside of the state network project and outside land grant universities.	Crop profiles, PMSPs and tactics surveys will be a separate project type in the new RFA.
Maintain one SNP per state even if they may share certain communications with other states e.g. states may share web sites but still need one person to be in contact with state stakeholders.	Planned in the new RFA, depends upon applicants.
Make sure SNP project advisory committees are interdisciplinary and multi-organizational.	Composition of advisory committees clearly delineated in new RFA
Increase communication between working groups and SNP projects including meetings. Part of the contract with IN projects might include working group interaction	New RFA will require each group to interact with the other.

IPM Working Groups

Recommendation	Progress Since
Expand and fund at a higher level.  Increase fund pool available to WGs to address key regional priorities	Routine annual funding remains as before, $5200 each. Project type "IPM Work Group Priorities" included in the new RFA, with estimated funds at $75,000 annually.
Hire additional staff specifically for working groups to gather resources, maintain web pages, and attend to meeting logistics.	Original plan was to hire another full-time staff member, freeing Liz Thomas to devote more energy to IWGs. Instead, we are contracting some computer and web work, effectively accomplishing the same result.
Provide limited funds ($3000 to $5000) annually to leadership of each work group to provide for / offset local staff resources involved in group leadership	$4000 per IWG budgeted for leadership, to be used as they deem appropriate.
Encourage better (more) interaction between WGs and State Information Network projects	New RFA will require each group to interact with the other.
Representative WG leaders should attend NE PMC AC meetings on a rotational basis.	2 IWGs appointed to AC. Terms will be the same as other AC members, and staggered to maintain continuity.
Make communication part of WG mission; make sure there are resources available to do this mission.	No specific action taken.
Build up WGs so that newsletters will have something to report. Make sure resources are funneled into producing results, then report on results.	No specific action taken.
Forestry representation needs to be included in WGs.	No specific action taken.
Continue to set priorities for commodities through WGs.	Most IWGs have defined regional priorities
Make sure WGs have wide representation.	Yes.

Identifying Emerging Critical Issues

Recommendation Feb. 2003	Progress Since Since
Obtain input from SNPs, WGs, IPM state coordinators. Pick a hot topic annually and put funding forward to address this issue e.g. West Nile, army worm, soybean aphid. We need to be flexible enough to address key issues. This would be a good marketing tool for awareness about the Center. Maybe ~$10K to address this either by workshop, fact sheet, the critical issue in a timely manner	Critical issue definition is left to those writing grants for the new RFA.