USDA, Cooperative Extension, & APLU Award Top Honors in Extension Excellence

Washington, DC – The US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Cooperative Extension, and the Association of Public and Lang-grant University (APLU) announce the following winners for the 2026 national Excellence in Extension awards. These awards are given annually and recognize Cooperative Extension individuals and teams demonstrating outstanding community leadership, innovative programming, and measurable impact. This year’s winners are as follows:

Excellence in Extension Award for an Individual: Mr. Paul Goeringer, University of Maryland

Excellence in Extension Team Award: Resilient Engaged Active Community Health (REACH), West Virginia University

Excellence in Extension for Innovative Programming that Addresses New Audience Award:
Ms. Mynda Tracy, University of Illinois- Urbana Campaign

“This year’s awardees truly reflect the strength and dedication of the Cooperative Extension System. Their leadership shows how powerful it can be when universities and communities work side‑by‑side to share knowledge and put it into action,” said USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Director Dr. Jaye Hamby. “Together, they’re creating meaningful, lasting change across the country.”

The National Excellence in Extension Award for an Individual is awarded annually to one Cooperative Extension professional who demonstrates outstanding scientific programming, visionary leadership, and positive impact in their community. Over the course of his career, he has built a nationally recognized Extension outreach program centered on plain-language legal education, covering farm leasing, succession planning, environmental law, right-to-farm laws, employment law, renewable energy contracting, and other issues affecting Maryland producers.

The National Excellence in Extension Team Award recognizes an Extension team performing work above and beyond their peers in research, technical assistance, and outreach education. Coordinated by Penn State University, Resilient Engaged Active Community Health (REACH), is a five-state partnership that addresses critical behavioral health challenges, including substance use disorders, opioid overdose, mental health concerns, stigma, and limited access to evidence-based services.

The Excellence in Extension for Innovative Programming that Addresses New Audience Award distinguishes a group or individual for significant achievement in Extension outreach to underserved communities. Lead by Mynda Tracy, the Extension Dual Credit & Credentialing Pathway demonstrates how Cooperative Extension can drive systemic change that expands access to college and career readiness opportunities. In Illinois, rural and under-resourced schools often face barriers to offering dual credit courses and industry-recognized credentials due to shortages of qualified instructors, limited Career and Technical Education (CTE) infrastructure, and fragmented connections among educational institutions and workforce partners. University of Illinois Extension sought to overcome these challenges by building educator capacity and creating new opportunities.

NIFA, Cooperative Extension, and APLU will also present four regional awards to individuals. This year’s recipients are:

·         1890s Region: Dr. Niki Whitley is an Extension Specialist at Fort Valley State University and serves producers across Georgia as the State Small Ruminant Specialist. With 26 years of Cooperative Extension experience at three 1890 land-grant universities, she has developed collaborative programs in small ruminants, beef cattle, pasture pork, rabbit production, equine health, and parasite management. Her work emphasizes practical, research-based solutions for small-scale and limited-resource livestock producers.

·         Southern Region: Dr. Daryl Brian Arnall is a Professor and Extension Precision Nutrient Management Specialist in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at Oklahoma State University, where he also serves as the Sitlington Endowed Chair and Director of the Soil Research Services Laboratory. Throughout his career, he has advanced science based nutrient management by helping producers improve profitability while enhancing nutrient use efficiency and environmental stewardship through precision agriculture.

·         North Central Region: Dr. Timothy McDermott is an Extension Educator and Assistant Professor, Agriculture and Natural Resources, in the Department of Extension, College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Ohio State University. His Urban agriculture/Local food production teaching focused on agricultural workforce development, controlled environment agriculture, soil health, specialty crops, family food security, and economic sustainability.

·         Western Region: Dr. Stephen Worker is a 4-H Youth Development Advisor with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. In the San Francsico north Bay, Dr. Worker has cultivated a STEM Learning Ecosystem that expands equitable access to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning.

“Extension professionals work hard every day to make a difference in the lives of people they work with.  It is such an honor to celebrate excellence in this work and recognize Extension professionals as changemakers in their communities,” said 2026 ECOP Chair Lisa Townson. “We are pleased to recognize this year’s winners and humbled by their dedication to the land grant mission.”

 

Pre-NEDA First Friday: Overview of Beyond Ready, Capacity, Health Tiger Team

The purpose of this “First Friday” webinar was to brief Cooperative Extension Directors and Administrators about three topics that will be discussed at their national conference this week. However, many others in the Cooperative Extension system could benefit from hearing these messages. 

Please follow this link to view the recording (Passcode: U9#s!iQ0). 

2026 New Administrators Orientation: Leading with Conviction, Courage, and Confidence
December 8-10, 2026 | Alexandria, VA

Presented by the APLU Office of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR), the New Administrators Orientation (NAO) is designed to help new administrators build the knowledge, connections, and leadership skills needed to succeed in their roles.

The program is intended for individuals who are new to administrative leadership positions within colleges and programs related to food, agriculture, natural resources, and the life sciences, including deans, associate deans, department heads, directors, experiment station leaders, and Extension administrators.

No matter your administrative position, NAO provides practical guidance for navigating the responsibilities and opportunities of academic administration.

Through discussions, expert perspectives, and peer engagement, participants will explore topics such as leadership and organizational culture, employee engagement, strategic communication, decision-making, and managing change. Participants will also gain a deeper understanding of the Board on Agriculture Assembly (BAA), including its policy, advocacy, and communications activities, and will have opportunities to engage directly with leaders from USDA.

By the end of the program, participants will have strengthened their leadership capabilities, expanded their professional network, and gained practical insights they can apply immediately to support their institutions' teaching, research, Extension, and service missions.

See more information about the NAO and register here.

Meet “JD:" John Deere’s New AI Assistant for Operations Center (From AgWeb Daily)

Designed as a conversational partner, the artificial intelligence assistant answers farmers’ questions in real time using customized insights generated from their own field, machine and operational data.

September 2026, ECOP approved an Artificial Intelligence Program Action Team. That PAT will give an ECOP report at the National Extension and Administrators Conference this week in Seattle, Washington.

NIFA Application Status Dashboard

Stakeholders can use the NIFA Application Status Dashboard to check the status of their grant applications. NIFA created the dashboard to enhance NIFA stakeholder customer experience. To use the tool, applicants will need to input their Grants.gov tracking number.

EPA Office of Pesticide Programs Seeks PPDC Appointees

 The Office of Pesticide Programs is in the process of seeking nominations of qualified candidates to be considered for appointment to the Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC). I am writing to seek your assistance with both nominating individuals and spreading the word about the open nominations to your relevant stakeholders.

The PPDC is chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act to provide policy advice, information and recommendations to the EPA on a wide variety of pesticide regulatory development and reform initiatives, evolving public policy and program implementation issues, and policy issues associated with evaluating and reducing risks from pesticide use.

For additional information about the PPDC, please visit the PPDC website here. Please note, a FederalRegister Notice announcing the request for nominations was published on August 17^th, which contains nominating instructions. Nominations are due on September 16th. If you have any questions, please contact Jeffrey Chang at chang.jeffrey@epa.gov.

Why Extension is the Right Partner for Health

The Extension Health Tiger Team identified five reasons that Cooperative Extension is the right partner for Health. Extension’s value in community health is not theoretical. It is demonstrated and durable:

• Unmatched national infrastructure. Extension operates in every state, U.S. territory, and nearly every county. It is the only educational system with geographic reach and local trust needed to deliver consistent, evidence-based health programming at the national scale, including in rural and other communities that federal programs and health systems often struggle to reach.
• Trust that drives lasting behavior change. Extension educators are embedded in communities for years — often decades. That depth of relationship produces the kind of sustained, longitudinal engagement that drives real behavior change at the individual and population level. No federal campaign, app, or episodic clinical program can replicate it.
• Proven federal partnerships at scale. Extension has partnered with CDC through EXCITE — reaching nearly 2.8 million individuals and forming 196 health partnerships — and has demonstrated effective, scalable delivery of the National Diabetes Prevention Program through PreventT2. These are not pilots. They are proof points.
• Lifespan reach and holistic, integrated programming. Extension’s health work spans prenatal nutrition to healthy aging. It integrates food systems, agriculture, community development, financial well-being, and youth development through 4-H — the kind of cross-sector, whole-person approach that produces durable community health outcomes that isolated health programs cannot offer.
• A research foundation that is second to none. Every program Extension delivers is evidence-based, continuously evaluated, and grounded in the latest science — from precision nutrition and food safety to mental health and chronic disease prevention.

The work of the Tiger Team will be one of three major topics discussed at the NEDAmeeting in Seattle. 

Hechinger Op-Ed on AI Workforce Readiness

While written from an academic programs perspective, the AI workforce readiness piece below is highly applicable to youth and adult education. 

OPINION: AI workforce readiness cannot remain a campus-by-campus experiment built around isolated pilot programs

Thursday NEDA Programming in Seattle

On Thursday morning, September 17, outgoing ECOP Chair Lisa Townson will provide a report on ECOP progress on strategic goals over the past 12 months. Additionally, incoming ECOP Chair, Cody Stone, will review the feedback provided by the regions. Following these presentations, the Extension Foundation will provide an update. This plenary session will take place from 8 to 10 am.

This plenary session will follow an optional breakout meeting of those interested in the National Urban Research and Extension Network, which will take place from 7 to 8 am.

To view the most up to date agenda, follow this link. 

USDA Asks Partners to Develop AI Solutions to Accelerate Crop Innovation

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is taking steps to speed up progress in plant science by calling on universities and stakeholders to help build new AI tools that can translate the huge amount of germplasm data the agency collects.

Through the Genesis Mission and the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA), USDA is expected to launch an Agricultural National Science & Technology Challenge later this year. The Challenge will ask innovators to create practical solutions that pull together different types of information—like images, field data, and lab results—so scientists can quickly spot important plant and seed traits and develop crops that are more resilient and productive.

Employment Opportunity: agInnovation South Executive Director

agInnovation South seeks a visionary and collaborative leader to serve as its next Executive Director. The Executive Director provides strategic leadership for one of the nation's five regional associations of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors, working with member universities to advance agricultural research through regional collaboration, national engagement, and strong partnerships. The position serves as the principal advocate for the Southern Region's research enterprise while guiding the Southern Multistate Research Program and fostering initiatives that strengthen the impact of public agricultural research.

Reporting to the Chair of agInnovation South, the Executive Director serves the Agricultural Experiment Station Directors of the fifteen member institutions across the Southern Region. The Executive Director will be located at one of the member universities by mutual agreement.

Read the full position description.