Agriculture Archives

Mr. Davis Clark, originally from North Carolina, received his Bachelor of Science in environmental science from Appalachian State University. After serving as a sustainable agriculture extension agent Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal, and being evacuated due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, Mr. Clark started his Master’s in Environmental Management at Western Colorado University in June of 2021. Through his experience working with local rural farmers in West Africa with the Peace Corps, and an impactful visit to the rural Himalayan regions of Uttarakhand, Mr. Clark was inspired to work at the grassroots level to improve local food systems in vulnerable regions of the world. His passion for the wilderness, mountaineering, regenerative agriculture, trees, and agroforestry has led him to seek meaningful and impactful work amongst farmers and producers in mountain regions from Southern Appalachia, the Central Rockies of Colorado, and the Himalayas of India.

The co-op conceptualized by Mr. Clark, for his Fulbright-Nehru project, focuses on increasing resilience across the local food system, community of rural farmers, agricultural landscape, and individuals involved. Through the extension of regenerative agriculture practices, agroforestry techniques, water conservation, and adaptive land management the co-op will improve the resiliency of the land, improve soil health, decrease drought vulnerability, and increase the resilience of the local food system. Furthermore, the co-op will focus on increasing connectivity amongst local producers, resource sharing, market access, and local support from the community.

Dr. Eric Davidson is professor of the Appalachian Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, where he served as director for six years. His research areas include terrestrial nutrient cycling, greenhouse gas emissions from soils, global biogeochemical cycles, and sustainable agriculture. Dr. Davidson is a past president and fellow of the American Geophysical Union; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and a highly cited researcher in Web of Science. He served as the North American Center director for the International Nitrogen Initiative and as a NASA project scientist for the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia. Dr. Davidson was also a Jefferson Science Fellow. He currently serves as senior editor for AGU Advances. He previously served as an editor for Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Global Change Biology, and Soil Science Society of America Journal. Dr. Davidson received his PhD from the Department of Forestry at North Carolina State University and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in soil microbiology at the University of California at Berkeley and at the NASA Ames Research Center. He worked for 22 years at the Woods Hole Research Center, including a term as president and executive director. He is the author of Science for a Green New Deal: Connecting Climate, Economics, and Social Justice and You Can’t Eat GNP.

Only about half of the nitrogen applied to croplands as fertilizers and manures goes into harvested products; the remainder is mostly lost as air and water pollution. Dr. Davidson’s Fulbright-Nehru project is investigating the potential impacts of the coming green ammonia transformation for fertilizers in India within the broader context of sustainable nitrogen management. In this regard, he is interviewing experts and stakeholders from government ministries, the fertilizer industry, schools of agronomy and environmental sciences, farmer groups, and biotechnology innovators to ascertain their awareness of green ammonia technology and their expectations of positive and negative consequences for agricultural productivity, economics, farmer well-being, and environmental quality.