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USDA CSREES Nano Project
Intellectual Merit
NRI, Competitive Grants Program, Opportunity 75.4 (Nanoscale Science and Engineering for Agriculture and Food Systems): Assessment and analysis of perceptions and acceptance of nanotechnology and nano-based products by the general public, agriculture, and food stakeholders using appropriate social science tools. Likely no group of persons is closer to the nanotechnology stakeholder base than is Extension. Hence, we pursue the RFA goal via an extension-based approach to public engagement designed specifically to capture stakeholder interactions with and perceptions of agrifood nanotechnologies, and to translate this information ‘upstream’ to agrifood policy organizations.
To accomplish this, we will conduct a series of workshops involving extension educators, social scientists, agrifood policy organizations, and nanoscience experts, the objectives of which will be to (1) familiarize extension educators with agrifood nanotechnologies, (2) ensure that they are prepared to apply relevant social science concepts and methods for documenting key perceptual data revealed through their interactions with other agrifood stakeholders in the course of their field activities, and (3) develop systems that translate those data to agrifood policy organizations so as to increase the likelihood of its utilization . Ideally, such an approach will guide future iterations of nanotechnology research, development, and extension at 1862, 1890, and 1994 land grant institutions. This ‘continual feedback’ approach to the assessment of stakeholder perceptions of nanotechnologies will better enable policymakers and nanotechnologists alike to fit these new technologies to people, rather than people to new technologies, in effect creating an iterative social paradigm for the development, implementation, and management of agrifood nanotechnologies and policies.