NIFA Partners with Grower Organizations

NIFA is in partnership with national, regional, and state grower organizations through the NIFA national program leaders and faculty at the land-grant universities.

One example is the Technology Roadmap, a collaborative product of industry and land-grant university participants that ensures the U.S. tree fruit industry remains economically viable by systematically reducing production costs and delivering premium quality fruit to the consumer.

To remain competitive in the world market, research priorities to reduce the cost of production of highest quality fruit by 30 percent within the next 10 years have been identified. This will require innovative thinking and approaches and increased expenditures in research and development in the areas of genetics/genomics, robotics/mechatronics, advanced IPM, post-harvest handling and environmentally sensitive crop management systems, to name a few areas, at the related land-grant universities.

Identifying and developing plants resistant to common pests to decrease use of chemicals by commercial growers and consumers will be important.

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