Deadline: Dec. 21, 2015
Written comments by attendees and other interested stakeholders will be welcomed as additional public input through Dec 21, 2015. All verbal and written statements will become part of the official public record of The National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics Advisory Board Office (REE) Advisory Board Office. Use the following link to the Federal Register page.
The public may file written comments to the REE Advisory Board Office, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Room 332-A, Jamie L. Whitten Building, 1400 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC, 20250-2255 or nareeeab@ars.usda.gov.
The comments follow a stakeholder listening session in Grand Rapids, MI for the subject USDA advisory Committee. The Specialty Crop Advisory Committee is a subcommittee of the REE Board. According to the Department: This session will be an opportunity to share ideas on the specialty crop industry with members of USDA’s Specialty Crop Committee, including: measures designed to improve the efficiency, productivity, and profitability of specialty crop production in the United States; measures designed to improve competitiveness through research, extension, and economics programs affecting the specialty crop industry; and programs that would: enhance quality and shelf-life, development of new crop protection tools, preventing foreign invasive pests and diseases, developing new and improved marketing tools, and enhancing food safety, improvement of mechanization of production practices, and enhancing irrigation techniques. Input received will help formulate recommendations from the Specialty Crop Committee to USDA.
For further information contact: Michele Esch, Executive Director, National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics Advisory Board; telephone: (202) 720-8408; fax: (202) 720-6199; or email: Michele.esch@ars.usda.gov.