National news release

ARS Scientist Earns Early Career Research Scientist Award

BELTSVILLE, Md., Feb. 12—Marshall C. Lamb, a food technologist with the Agricultural Research Service's Peanut Research Unit at Dawson, Ga., has been named an “Outstanding Early Career Scientist of 2002" by the agency. ARS is the chief scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Lamb and other award-winning ARS employees will be recognized at a Feb. 12 ceremony at the agency’s Henry A. Wallace Beltsville (Md.) Agricultural Research Center. Lamb will receive a plaque, a cash award and additional research funding.

The “Early Career Scientist” awards are given to ARS scientists who have been with the agency seven years or less, and who earned their highest academic degree within the past 10 years.

Lamb serves as lead scientist of a ARS research project to develop, evaluate and transfer technology to improve efficiency and quality in peanuts. He is also responsible for two major U.S. peanut projects and has collaborated with other scientists in conducting economic research.

At the request of the U.S. peanut industry, Lamb planned and conducted Investigations in Peanut Marketing to Assure Competitiveness (IMPAC) in order to evaluate the economic feasibility and efficiency of screening farmer stock peanuts prior to marketing at a commercial scale. During this study, approximately 377 tons of peanuts were evaluated. Lamb developed new specific grade thresholds and associated probabilities that enable peanut producers and processors to make informed decisions on whether or not to screen individual farmer stock loads prior to marketing.

Lamb also developed a comprehensive whole farm planning, crop rotation optimization, and in- season cost monitoring system called WHOLEFARM. The system has been evaluated in all U.S. peanut-producing regions with cooperating farmers, extension personnel, agricultural lenders, and various farm organizations such as Future Farmers of America. WHOLEFARM allows producers to “build” their farms into the computer program on a farm-by-farm and field-by-field basis and generate a variety of agronomic and financial reports. WHOLEFARM also incorporates years of research on crop rotations to mathematically optimize a farm’s rotation sequence.

Lamb earned a bachelor’s degree in 1988 and a master’s degree in 1990 in agricultural economics from the University of Georgia, and a doctorate, also in agricultural economics, from Auburn University in 1995.