The high-tech effort is included in the first phase of the Smart Farms program launched by the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. The data gathered during the three-year project will help inform American farmers to improve their operations and participate in bioenergy and carbon markets expected to develop in coming years. The Nebraska-led group is one of six tapped by the agency to do careful greenhouse gas measurements in production fields for grain crops that supply the ethanol industry. Corn and soybeans will be the focus of the Nebraska-led project. Other partners with Nebraska are the University of Wisconsin-Platteville; South Dakota State University; the USDA Agricultural Research Services laboratories based in Ames, Iowa, Morris, Minnesota, and Lincoln; the Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies; and AgriThority, an agricultural science consulting firm based in Kansas City, Missouri.