WASHINGTON, D.C.-The National Potato Council's research priority survey is now online. The NPC has been working with the state potato organizations, individual growers and the potato research community to identify national research priorities.
Part of this collaboration included an NPC/USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-hosted symposium, held in January 2010. The symposium included researchers, growers and allied industry partners. The results of the symposium allowed the NPC to develop a web-based grower survey that will be useful in clearly identifying research priorities. The need to clearly identify potato research priorities has become critically important. Traditional funding sources, including ARS and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), have remained constant in amount while the need and cost of research has increased.
Within the 2008 Farm Bill, a new source of funding-the Specialty Crop Research Initiative-emerged. This funding is very competitive and requires a high level of national prioritization and coordination among researchers for successful grant funding. Grower participation in this survey is crucial to the potato industry's ability to secure research funding. Click on the link below to access the survey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NPC_research_survey