Welcome to the Midwest Area

Larry Chandler
Area Director
(309) 681-6602
USDA, ARS, Midwest Area
1815 North University Street
Peoria, IL 61604

Directions (external link to MapQuest.com)

Home Page: http://www.mwa.ars.usda.gov

Mission:

We are the Midwest Area of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

We conduct our research in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Working together, our 1400 employees develop improvements in the ways the Midwest and the Nation produce and use agricultural commodities. Those improvements accrue through:

·         increases in quantity, quality, and safety of commodities and final products;

·         sustainability of the natural resource base that underpins production and processing; and

·         value of all forms to producers, consumers, and communities.

Midwest Area researchers are uniquely positioned, scientifically and geographically, to deliver maximum benefits to the region’s producers and processors of agricultural commodities; moreover, the scientific findings and outcomes are highly valued by the consumer, business, environmental, and scientific sectors throughout the Nation and the world.

ARS scientists, their support staffs, and the Midwest Area Office function as an efficient and effective team to develop and deliver these improvements, arising from a research program encompassing a continuum of:

·         understanding research, making fundamental discoveries about basic physical, chemical, and biological components and processes embedded at all scales in the agricultural enterprise;

·         predicting research, testing and challenging that understanding until responses of systems within the agricultural enterprise to different conditions can be anticipated; and

·         decision-support research, the ultimate goal, applying predictability as the foundation for new tools and products that are then transferred to users, thus enabling scientists, producers, consumers, and policy makers to make informed decisions, reduce risks, and solve problems.

This discovery-to-application approach makes the Midwest Area’s scientists leaders in all of ARS’ National Programs. Plant, animal, environmental, and product sciences, from the field to the dinner table, from commodity production to product safety, from food to biofuels, from DNA to the watershed – all approaches and levels of complexity are integrated into the Midwest Area’s comprehensive agricultural research portfolio.

ARS’ scientists in the Midwest Area leverage their talents and resources with those of other organizations to move from research outputs (e.g., scientific publications, computer models, inventions, new crop varieties, etc.) to tangible outcomes (benefits arising from decisions based on sound science). Partner organizations in the Midwest Area include other Federal agencies, some of the largest and most dynamic public universities in the country, stakeholder groups, and state agencies, as well as other ARS laboratories across the nation.

Research units in ARS’ Midwest Area recognize the value of a diverse staff that guarantees scientific flexibility and nimble responsiveness to create new opportunities for decision support. A “diverse staff” takes many forms in the Midwest Area, not just a multidisciplinary team. All employees understand that an environment diverse in every sense -- and discrimination-free -- is essential to the high degree of diversity of ideas and viewpoints that drive innovation.

The Midwest Area Office staff focuses on enabling the highest levels of creativity, productivity, and advancement by our scientists. Our undivided attention is on supporting the business at hand. And the Agricultural Research Service’s business is research.