North Dakota facility called key to boosting agriculture innovation

The National Corn Growers Association said this week that the efforts of the National Agricultural Genotyping Center in North Dakota can help reverse a trend that has seen the U.S. falling behind in agriculture research because of a lack of funding for innovation and research, especially in the areas of sustainable production practices, genetic improvement and new uses.

The genotyping center is charged with translating scientific discoveries into solutions for farmers thanks to the National Corn Growers Association, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center based Missouri

“The name ‘National Agricultural Genotyping Center,’ or NAGC, may sound intimidating but at its core the facility and its mission is very simple,” Larry Hoffmann, chairman of the National Corn Growers Association’s Corn Productivity & Quality Action Team, said. “They are here to identify high priority problems related to production agriculture, food safety, functional foods, bioenergy and national security and then use the latest technology to find an expedited solution.”

The genotyping center can expedite solutions to problems because of the high tech facility’s ability to develop, run and review genetic assays and get U.S. farmers up to par with the rest of the world by making smarter investments to solutions for everything from honey bee colony collapse to plant and animal diseases.

“NAGC is already proving its worth because of its ability to quickly assess and better understand these problems,” NCGA Research Director Richard Vierling said. “When it’s done right, agricultural genotyping can alleviate the inefficiencies, redundancies, bottlenecks and gaps that impede research and commercial development.”