USDA's vision for scientific research was released in the USDA Science Blueprint.

“As the department strives to anticipate and meet the future needs of our customers, the USDA Science Blueprint will serve as a roadmap to guide our scientific collaboration over the next five years across the department and with our partnering research organizations," said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

“By prioritizing our research initiatives around these themes, it will enable us to best conduct critical, long-term, broad-scale science and spur innovation throughout our nation’s agricultural enterprise, natural resource base, and food systems," said Dr. Scott Hutchins, who leads USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics mission area.

The USDA Science Blueprint provides a foundation for focused leadership and direction in advancing USDA’s scientific mission through 2025. It lays out five overarching themes for research, education, and economics, each with established objectives, strategies, and evidence-building measures. The five themes include:

The USDA Science Blueprint includes the four REE mission area agencies:

along with the Office of the Chief Scientist and the science arms of the U.S. Forest Service, Food Safety and Inspection Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Food and Nutrition Service, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

What are others saying?

"Ensuring that agricultural lands, national forests, and private working lands are conserved and restored makes agriculture production more resilient to climate change and other disturbances such as drought, invasive species, and wildfire," said Solutions from the Land. "Further, based on the best available science, new strategies and management practices must be developed to allow unmanaged and managed systems to be fully leveraged to mitigate and address climate change. While mitigation is a priority, agricultural systems must nonetheless adapt to the changing weather patterns and temperature regimes to ensure food security."

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