The scientific gap in the knowledge about how the sun should be optimized in farming system design and practice is costing the world an estimated up to 50% of agricultural land productivity loss. We estimate and recommend NSF should spend $20 to $30 million a year of the INFUSE budget in an entirely new focus of agricultural system research throughout the United States and the world through US leadership in agricultural research and in international development. This white paper describes the systemic science gap about sunlight optimization in farming systems optimization and the level of funding for Solar Corridor Science research that is necessary to achieve a new farming system framework based upon maximum use of sunlight.
Everything we eat comes from the sun. Whatever we ate for lunch today came from the sun.
The most salient and presumed energy element of photosynthesis in the Food Energy
Water System (FEWS) framework is solar energy, not solar panels to pump water or make electricity, but the direct solar energy to deliver light from the sun to the plant. Radiant sunlight is the most profound requirement of all food production systems, but completely bypassed or ignored as the beginning or principal framework for farming systems optimization. This is historically logical as water and nutrients were critical, but manipulation of these elements alone is now inadequate to increase FEWS output by
80% to 100% to feed the world population of over 9 billion in 2050. This lack of focus on maximizing sun to all leaves on the plant at the foundation of farming systems has been the practice for thousands of years. This lack of focus is a knowledge gap reflected in limited research budgets of major government and institutional funders of scientific research in agricultural productivity in the United States.
Maximizing sunlight’s impact on the photosynthesis process has never been the focus of a farming systems framework for all elements of farming, but is seen as only one among many elements of plant breeding since the burgeoning activity in genetic manipulation of seed exploded in the last 50 years. Hence, global agriculture led by the agricultural sciences in the
United States has pushed rows closer and closer and tried to manipulate crop genetics to overcome the obviously increased plant-on-plant shade during the entire crop cycle. The overwhelming focus for farmer practice and research for USDA, USAID, and other agencies has been designed and executed for the science and management for water and nutrient delivery to the root zone--not sunlight--as the foundation. This was appropriate and excellent work and should continue, but now within a framework that is formulated around the most important element in the photosynthesis process, sunlight.
Both the ASA members Louis Simpson Foundation (LSF) and The Deaton Institute for
University Leadership in International development (DIULID) believe through new in depth and broad based research largely unknown at this time, a revolutionary transformation in thinking, research focus and farming system design is imperative in the United States and globally to optimize all farming systems to maximize photosynthesis as the framework of design, not as an artifact of plant breeding. Our institutions are dedicated to facilitate this transformation of 21st century agricultural research and farming systems, putting the "E" as the centerpiece of science

based farming systems based on sunlight use in the nexus of FEWS. We believe this is a most important scientific consideration for priority research in FEWS because it represents optimization of abundant and free sunlight while all other factors cost money. Radiant sunlight in farming systems represents an opportunity for a quantum leap for the FEWS nexus to be able to feed the world abundantly.
Critically important, we further believe optimization of sunlight use will prove to be an essential key farming system framework to eliminate global extreme poverty -- fulfilling the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for Africa, Asia, and Latin America and consistent with the goals of USAID. The SDG was just adopted by the United Nations in September under
United States leadership with a 2015 to 2030 timeline.
The potential doubling of the output of US agriculture based on the ASA members' scientific research and elimination of extreme poverty is our priority in our presentation regarding the 10 year funding of Solar Corridor Farming Systems because such productivity in the FEWS is at stake for the next 35 years to 2050.
We are confident that research suggests the potential of a tremendous leap in US and global agricultural productivity as the outcome, if the NSF funds this gap in science. Such funding will enable its application and dissemination through the extension programs of universities throughout the world, which our institutions are designed to facilitate, including the critical role of farmer cooperatives and organizations, and large scale and small scale commercial farmers implementing and adopting the Solar Corridor Farming System by such tools as our new
Internet Global Farmer AP media initiative which could use INFUSE funding for the application of Big Data to every farm in the world.
The Solar Corridor Science and its Farming Systems Research Range
While other presentations are being made in our Solar Corridor Community of over 100 scientists at ASA, we acknowledge Groundbreaking ASA researchers LeRoy Deichman and
Robert Kramer who have uncovered the need for this new conceptual framework for farming systems design globally. They created the term "The Solar Corridor" to describe it. These
University of Missouri centered scientists over the last 40 years have proven that certain high yielding corn hybrids doubled their yields per lineal foot of crop row by doubling the distance between the rows and creating a corridor of sunlight by orienting the row pattern to the path of the sun across the day to eliminate crop shading between rows of corn. This corridor of light facilitates day long sunshine on a maximum number of leaves. This effect doubles the use of farmland by opening a corridor to plant a lower crop for intercropping between the corn rows, optimally a high value commodity or vegetable such as legumes. The University of Missouri findings are being demonstrated and tested in Africa by the Louis Simpson Foundation at the
Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Malawi.
Based upon broad existing research in intercropping, animal husbandry, combined with this groundbreaking proven principle of the Solar Corridor, University of Missouri researchers believe with creative use of intercropping of a variety of crops planted in sequence in the Solar
Corridor from March through November, land use efficiency could be greatly enhanced. We are likely to see land index use increase up to 2.2 from current baseline of 1.0 in the typical one crop per year Missouri farming mono-cropping which alternates corn and soybean by the typical
Missouri farmer. By using Solar Corridor Science, the farmer can possibly double farmer income if all crops are optimized genetically for maximum sun use, whether rain-fed or irrigated.

Our institutions envision a coordinated study using ASA scientists and institutions across the
United States and the developing world over a 10 year life of FEWS funding. We recommend coordinating research in every state through regionally significant Land Grant Universities in
Centers for Applied Agricultural Research which offer a broad geography, varying soil types, and climatic conditions of significance in their regions, which parallel existing regional USDA funding of agricultural research. Perhaps 3 lead universities in each region of West, Midwest,
East and South could facilitate consistent research in every state for every element of research affecting crop yields, farmer financial sustainability, and ecological sustainability. Solar Corridor
Farming Systems Science, we believe, is a very flexible framework within which virtually all other elements of farming systems including soil, water, nutrient delivery, plant breeding and physiology, insect and all other elements of cross cutting system research can be consistently evaluated nationally. We envision a Big Data system of continual farm level collection and integration of micro and macro data elements to maximize INFEWS funded research or further research of equal importance, developing new extension tools like our Global Farmer AP.
We recommend a call for proposals for a broad, nationwide multiyear institutional research project on the Solar Corridor Farming System Science. We will be enthusiastically involved with the NSF in helping define the scope, breath, and nature of the scientific research within and around the groundbreaking Solar Corridor Farming System Science domain.
Below is a simple matrix for a start of framework thinking for research consideration on the Solar
Corridor Farming System Science.
Research Matrix for Global Solar Corridor Research and Dissemination Project
(Transformative Global Food Production Objective)
Solar Corridor Cropping System (SCCS) - Variables optimum performance research:
Variable
Performance
Outcomes
Main crop
Feed grain/Food; postharvest residue uses
Inter-crop (corridor)
Feed grain, forage, soil-building, food source
Environmental
Beneficial organisms; water quality; maintain soil quality
Crop selection
Cultivar selection
Corn, Sorghum, Millet, etc Grain, food, forage production; plant protection properties
Known yield response to
SCCS?
Selected cultivar traits Nutrient-use efficiency; drought, pest tolerance?
Compatibility with main crop? Grain vs Cover crop purpose?
Competition response; stress tolerance; soil nutrient additions
Improve soil and water quality
Maintain/enhance pollinators
& other beneficials, etc.
Above-ground & belowground biomass X soil effect
Climate region
Management
Adaptable varieties; irrigation requirements
Tillage options; chemical fertilizer, pesticide inputs?
Adaptable varieties, purpose of inter-crop
Tillage options; fertilizer required or as a nutrient source (i.e., N2fixation)
Maintain quality of limited water resources & soils
Tillage and erosion potential

Livestock integration in farming system
Land-use efficiency
Soils – regional land classes
Soils – specific properties
Soil quality
Soil biology
Previous management effects
Community
Plant Genetics
Subsistence farmer livelihood Impacts
African ecology
Nutrient (manure) sources; onsite forage
Doubles output based on intercropping approach
Response to inherent soil properties (high clay, sand; fragipan); topography
Response to nutrient supply, acidity, OM, waterholding capacity
Green manure for fodder & soil incorporation of residues
Crop diversity; increases possible rotation schemes
Effects on stress tolerance – competition for moisture, rooting volume, seasonal weather
Able to supplement soil nutrients,
OM, enhance structure, etc.
Enhance physical, chemical, biological properties
Enhance physical, chemical, biological properties; promote microbial diversity
Enhance microbial diversity
(structurally & functionally); nutrient cycling; pest suppression
Enhance microbial diversity
(structural & functional); nutrient cycling; pest suppression; beneficial plant-microbe interaction
Respond to degradative effects: shallow topsoil, low fertility & OM, soilborne diseases, etc.
Meaningful employment for food production
Optimal sunlight
Performance
Yield impacts on food & surplus marketable grain
Revive topsoil and SOM; suppress diseases, insects, weeds; increase earthworms & other soil fauna, beneficial arthropods
Realization of multiple benefits of a diverse agricultural production system
Optimal sunlight performance
Nutritional balance in diet & health implications
Rotation benefits with other
CA & CS elements
Soil restoration, CS farming systems
Onsite animal waste & plant residue conservation
Global 2X efficiency of agricultural land
Reduce erosion, increase water infiltration
Reduce nutrients in runoff; promote water infiltration, etc.
Enhance environmental quality; promote beneficial organisms, wildlife
Enhance beneficial soil organisms – degrade pesticides, limit entry of nitrates, P into waters
Reduce environmental degradation; improve efficiency of ecosystem services
Satisfaction in protecting the living environment
Greater FEWS
Efficiency performance
Reverse destruction of soils
(erosion, soil restoration)
Reverse national ecological disasters
Economic impacts Double yield per unit area Economic diversity Multiple leverage on climate
& agribusiness impacts
Created for the 2015 Solar Corridor Symposium by research scientists C.L Deichman and R.J. Kremer in collaboration with the Louis Simpson Foundation and Africa Blue
If you wish to participate in this project, please contact LeRoy Deichman (573-633-2279; leroy.deichman@yahoo.com
), Howard Davis (503-709-7214; howarddavisiii@gmail.com
) or, R.J Kremer (573-356-
3665; kremerr@missouri.edu
)