During the workshop, participants learned about test organisms, laboratory bioassay protocols, environmental risk assessment for genetically engineered plants, tiered testing, non-target field studies, surrogate species, life stages, and laboratory test design. After these concepts were reinforced through exercises and group work over the intervening days, the training wrapped up with discussions about insect resistance management and data transportability.

On the second day of the workshop, participants set up pitfall traps at a working farm, which they collected, processed, and identified in a laboratory on the fourth day. They also had the opportunity to tour the laboratory and field at Corteva Agriscience, as well as interpret and report out NTO study reports in groups. Through discussions following these case studies, they gained an understanding of the limits of NTO testing in environmental risk assessment.

As part of the Climate Adaptation and Mitigation in Fruit and Vegetable Supply Chains project, AFSI and Washington State University (WSU) organized a series of by-invitation-only activities in March 2022 to ground-truth a web tool focusing on climate analogs developed by WSU. This work led to an extension-focused proposal, selected for funding by USDA NIFA in 2023, to use climate analogs to improve programmatic capacity and workforce education, putting knowledge into meaningful practice. A paper about this research and how it could catalyze cross-regional dialogs, written by authors from the original project team, was published in Scientific Reports on June 8, 2023.