Southern Association's Role in Strategic Planning
The increasing diversity of customers for the products of state agricultural experiment station research, fiscal constraints in many Southern states, and opportunities for non-conventional funding of multi-state research consortia, all speak to the need for and opportunities arising from more effective communications and linkages among the state agricultural experiment stations in the Southern Region. A few years ago, experiment station directors concluded that a more dynamic and effective regional association was needed to meet changing demands and to make more effective use of resources through cooperation. Thus, the Southern Association made some major changes to bring new focus and energy to the association.
One of the key factors in implementing the decision to build a stronger regional association is the development and use of strategic planning. In the Southern Association, the plan is entering its second major revision. It has proven to be a modernized regional management system a mechanism for developing broad consensus among directors about what should be done and a tool for making decisions on implementing actions at the regional level, including the allocation of regional research resources.
The Southern Association Planning Committee is comprised of six groups, each addressing a major program area. Every member of the Southern Association is a member of a planning group. These groups have pivotal responsibility not only in developing the plan, but in using it to make decisions about the various activities that make up the business of the association. There is an ongoing process of consensus-seeking among the association's members with input from the 13 advisory committees comprised of department heads from across the region.
The Southern Association believes that there should be an obvious continuity between national and regional strategies, although it clearly recognizes the principle that research tends to be relatively site-specific. Thus, a major segment of the Southern Strategic Research Plan builds on the national plan and uses it as a template to interpret the Southern agenda relative to the broadly stated national initiatives. In addition, the association has identified a number of research opportunities which it recognizes as being more specific to the Southern agenda and upon which various activities of the Southern Association may likely be built.
With assistance from the USDA, all projects in each of the states of Southern Region states were classified relative to their contribution to sustainable agriculture. This provided a credible assessment of the current portfolio that addresses the sustainable agriculture agenda, as it is perceived by its major proponents. The results of this analysis are published on the World Wide Web and may be accessed through the SAAESD Home Page.
This will serve as a basis for more definitive planning to address an agenda that will look past the SARE program and address the broader set of issues that are relevant to improving the use of natural resources for production of food and fiber using systems approaches that are environmentally sound and socially acceptable.
A joint conference with the Southern Extension Directors on agroecosystems was held in April, 1995 to further sharpen and prioritize this agenda with inputs from the stakeholders that are involved. The results of this conference are available on the World Wide Web and may be accessed through the SAAESD Home Page.
Annual Schedule
Initiating, Reviewing, and Approving New and Continuing Activities
Responsibility Product/Action
Planning Groups Strategic Plan
Directors Propose New Activities
Review & Propose Dispositions of
Ongoing Activities
Planning Groups/ Joint/Separate Reviews &
Advisory Committees Recommendations
Planning Groups/ Reviews and Recommendations
Association Actions on Proposals/Recommendations
Joint Experiment Station/ Review/Approve SERAS
Extension Directors
Administrative Advisors Initiate Approved Activities
Summary of Results
Table 1 contains the list of research opportunities for the Southern Region. These are
statements of need or opportunity for more focused effort within the region. The list is
ranked according to relative priority. The ranking is based on the perception of
individual directors of the regional importance of the initiative.
Table 1
Title of Opportunity Priority Ranking
Mitigating environmental problems with intensive animal
agriculture operations 1
Biologically-based pest management technologies 2
Sustainable agriculture 3
Exploring value-added genes through conventional breeding
programs and molecular biology 4
Revitalizing rural economies 5
Precision agriculture 6
Risk and return assessment 7
Wetlands conservation and management 8
Policy analysis and economics of sustainable production systems, natural
resource management and environmental regulation 9
Biodiversity 10
Economic and policy analysis of industrialization of
southern agriculture 11
Nutrition and food safety as major linkages between agricultural, veterinary
and medical research 12
Animal health monitoring system 13
Gene mapping for equine and aquaculture species 14
Adding value to crops before harvest 15
Southern wood supply 16
Table 2 lists the six major research program areas and the 22 research initiatives which comprise the base program plan for the region. The votes of individual directors were aggregated to establish a ranking of the national importance of these initiatives. The lower numbers reflect higher priority.
Table 2
Research Program Areas and Initiatives Southern Region
Priority
Environment and Natural Resources
Conserve and enhance air, soil, and water resources 1
Improve ecosystem management for sustained productivity 6
Recover and use waste resources 14
Develop resource management decision systems 15
Nutrition, Food Safety, and Health
Enhance food safety 3
Target optimal nutrition for individual health 17
Design foods for healthy diets 18
Promote healthy food choices 22
Processes and Products
Convert processing byproducts to beneficial uses 13
Enhance food quality and value 7
Develop new or improved non-food products 20
Economic and Social Issues
Enhance agricultural and rural economies 8
Enhance rural community development 16
Empower people for economic and social viability 21
Animal Systems
Develop integrated/sustainable animal production systems 2
Enhance animal genetic diversity and biological performance 9
Increase the quality of animal food products 10
Enhance the health and well-being of food animals 18
Plant Systems
Enhance plant integrated pest management (IPM) 4
Develop alternative plant management systems 12
Understand fundamental plant processes 11
Improve plants through genetics 5
From Strategy to Action
The six planning groups of the Planning Committee are responsible for making
recommendations to the group on its new and continuing activities. The advisory
committees (department heads) also are charged to provide continuing evaluation of the
current portfolio as well as to make recommendations on new/continuing activities. This
couples the strategy planning process with the annual analysis and decision-making that
determines activities of the Southern Association.
In the first iteration of the plan, some 15 new opportunities were identified for consideration as new activities. In the subsequent two years, 12 of the 15 opportunities have become active efforts in either the Southern Association or jointly with the Southern Extension Directors.
To illustrate that the investment in regional research follows the priorities of the strategic plan, the following table shows the distribution of all funds expended on regional projects as a function of the rank order priorities of the strategy. Forty-three percent of the funds in 1992 were expended on initiatives with priorities of one through six (about the top 25 percent). Eighty-four percent of the funds were expended on initiatives that fall within the top half of the priorities.
Table 3
Investment of Total Funds in Regional Research The director s actual expenditures of funds from all sources to the regional projects for FY 1993 are arrayed according to Southern Director priorities. New projects are not reflected in these totals. Priority Total Funds (in thousands) Percent Cumulative 1-6 25,740 39 39 7-12 29,596 45 84 13-17 7,876 12 96 18-22 2,420 4 100 Information on 1993 expenditures taken from USDA/CSREES/CRIS report listing projects performed in the states of the Southern Region.