Summarized responses from USDA Agriculture Innovation Strategy 2020 Request for Information Version 2

[ Note: This dataset supersedes Version 1, https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1520662 ]

In February 2020, USDA launched the Agriculture Innovation Agenda (AIA), representing a Department-wide effort to align USDA's resources, programs, and research to provide farmers with the tools they need to position American agriculture as a global leader meeting future food, fiber, fuel, and feed demands. As part of the AIA, USDA set ambitious goals to increase agricultural production by 40 percent, while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half by 2050.

The Agriculture Innovation Agenda (AIA) is USDA's commitment to the continued success of American farmers, ranchers, producers, and foresters in the face of future challenges.

The AIA is comprised of four main parts. The first is focused on developing a U.S. Agriculture Innovation Strategy that aligns public- and private-sector research. The second integrates innovative technologies and practices into USDA programs to help fast track producer adoption. The metrics component aims to review USDA productivity and conservation data. Finally, the USDA scorecard has benchmarks to improve accountability.

As part of the research component, in 2020, USDA collected unstructured text feedback through a Request for Information (RFI) on the most important innovation opportunities for the next era of agriculture to be addressed in the near and long term. RFI responses were qualitatively analyzed to identify emergent themes and common aspirational goal statements that stakeholders shared across multiple RFI responses. USDA collected 223 responses through the RFI. Responses were grouped into several focus areas including commodity crops, specialty crops, livestock, aquaculture, forestry, and farming, general. This dataset supports a dashboard that represents the synthesized data collected through the RFI and stakeholder engagements.

• Resource Title: Discovery Goals spreadsheet with text tables for use with AIS dashboard, Version 2.

  File Name: Discovery goal tables_FinalApproved_12.28.20_v2.xlsx

  Resource Description: Text summaries are organized into tabs that support filters by theme (e.g. crop production, forestry, beef and range, dairy, and data) and within theme into Innovation clusters (genome design, digital/automation, prescriptive intervention, systems based farm management) and innovation horizon (Incremental solutions to accelerate, transformative solutions to create, Next era concepts, and gaps & barriers (including policies or supporting technologies needed)). For each combination of innovation cluster and innovation horizon for a theme there is a text summary of the stakeholder feedback, drawn from raw responses.

  Only minor punctuation and grammatical changes from Version 1.

  Resource Software Recommended: Microsoft Excel,url: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/excel