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Read the one-page conference summary

The overall goal of the conference is to address the changing economic, societal, and environmental background facing grassland agriculture today and in the future, including climate variability and change, energy costs and sources, market prices for commodity crops, demographics, the emerging bioenergy industry, and evolving markets for local foods.

Additionally, the goal is to identify scientific knowledge, technological capacity, and policy instruments needed to enhance the capacity of individual land owners, rural communities, researchers, and policy makers to evaluate alternative scenarios in terms of production, economic, social, and environmental criteria.

This three-day conference will consist of invited key-note speakers, submitted posters, and facilitated roundtable discussions organized around the following topic areas:

1. Status and trends in types of agricultural systems, inputs, productivity, profitability, environmental indicators, and rural demographics and economics.

2. Environmental, social, and economic benefits of mixed grassland landscapes to include farm level, rural community, and broad social perspectives.

3. Factors driving changes in grassland environments (e.g., environmental quality, resource availability, demographics, social dynamics, economics, climate change, Farm Bill and bioenergy policies, state implementation of TMDL, local zoning/farmland preservation).

4. Assessment tools for monitoring and predicting changes in grassland agricultural systems and to support scenario analyses for evaluation of alternatives and tradeoffs.

5. Science and policy needed to sustain agriculture in mixed grassland environments. Role of market-based tools, flexible state and local water laws and policies to allow environmental trades (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, water allocation, effluent releases).

Topic 1: Status and trends
John Ikerd, University of Missouri

Topic 2: Environmental, social, and economic benefits
Deborah E. Popper, City University of New York
Frank J. Popper, Rutgers University

Topic 3: Factors driving change
Vivien Gore Allen, PhD., Texas Tech University

Topic 4: Assessment tools
Dennis Ojima, PhD, The H John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment

Topic 5: Science and policy
George Boody, Land Stewardship Project

Closing session
Jean Steiner, USDA-ARS Grazinglands Research Laboratory
Craig Cox, Soil and Water Conservation Society