In addition to leading WSU’s Center for Precision Agricultural Systems at Prosser, Pierce also is president of the American Society of Agronomy.
“I believe my role is to listen to the organizers and speakers on their perspectives on America’s great outdoors and to provide them with input from the perspective of the ASA and as a scientist and faculty member of a major land-grant university,” Pierce said.
Tom Vilsack, U.S. secretary of agriculture, said in a prepared statement, “There is no doubt that we face serious challenges to our natural resources: climate change, air and water pollution, a lost connection between some Americans and the outdoors, and a fragmentation and loss of open space.
“We believe that the best way to answer these challenges is to work with landowners, conservation groups, sportsmen and women, local communities and state and local governments to conserve America’s great outdoors and, in doing so, reconnect Americans to our forests, working lands and public lands.”