Agriculture depends on scientific advancement to sustain
and increase productivity. Research also enhances the
ability of USDA agencies to accomplish strategic goals
and succeed within their mission areas. Present day decisions
about the level and direction of research funding will
determine technological opportunities in the future.
Key changes for public agricultural research in the
Food, Conservation, and Energy
Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Act)
include:
Reorganization of USDA Public Agricultural
Research Institutions
The
2008 Farm Act includes
provisions to increase the coordination of research programs
and activities among different agencies, universities,
and other institutions. Coordination of research can
reduce duplication of effort and thereby improve the
efficiency of agricultural research spending. Coordination
can also improve the communication of results so that
researchers in related fields have readier access to
research findings, increasing the impact of research.
Greater coordination can also strengthen the link between
research and extension (which
disseminates land grant expertise to farmers and consumers), speeding
the diffusion of new
practices based on scientific research.
Examples of the 2008 Farm Act's provisions to improve coordination
include:
- Creation of the National Institute for Agriculture
(NIFA), under the leadership of a newly appointed Director,
to replace Cooperative Research Education and Extension Service (CSREES), which
will be dissolved on October 1, 2009.
- Creation of the Research Extension and Education
Office (REEO) to assist the Under Secretary of Research,
Education and Extension (REE) with coordination efforts.
- Establishment of criteria for regional centers of
excellence.
These provisions build on existing coordination efforts
by USDA agencies. The diversity of locations, multidisciplinary
topics, and institutional settings in which the USDA
funds or carries out research and extension creates the
need for coordination. For instance, the Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) carries out research in over 100
locations, and
CSREES grants are carried out in over 100 Land Grant
universities and thousands of county and regional extension
offices throughout the United States. Another reason
for greater coordination of research is the need to make
efficient use of stagnating Federal and State agricultural
research budgets. U.S. public sector research experienced
0.2% annual growth from 1995-2005 (see the Amber
Waves article,
Sources
of Public Agricultural R&D Changing (June 2000).
Increased Emphases on Competitive Grants
The 2008 Farm Act also places a strong emphasis on awarding
funding competitively. It expands authorizations for
competitive grants and creates new competitively awarded
research initiatives.
Examples include:
- Authorization of $700 million in competitive grants
under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.
- Awarding Smith-Lever 3(d) extension funds on a competitive
basis, with the exception of the Nutrition Education
Program for which funding will be allocated according
to formula, rather than using the current formula based
largely on States' rural and agricultural populations.
(Smith-Lever funds represented $286 million of CSREES's
$1,206 million fiscal year 2007 budget.)
- Requiring new research grants under the Specialty
Crops Research Initiative (SCRI), Sun Grant Program,
and various rural development grants to be awarded
on a competitive basis.
The choice between competitive grants (awarded by peer
scientists) and formula funds (allotted by research administrators)
reflects tradeoffs associated with research resource
allocation. Competitive grants allocate research resources
toward research proposals on criteria of expected research
impact and likelihood of success instead of by a formula.
However, some dispute this, noting among other things
that competitive grant writing and selection involve
significant transaction costs and that recipient institutions
of formula funds have internal competitive processes
to award funds (see Winners
and Losers: Formula versus Competitive Funding of Agricultural
Research, in Choices magazine). Also,
the chief advantage of competitive grantsi.e. peer
scientists steering funds to the most promising research
prospectsmight be a drawback to the extent that
research administrators have broader insights and longer
time horizons about society's research needs. Formula
funds allow scientists to plan longer term projects,
although the Farm Act does include some provisions for
competitive grants of longer duration.
Despite the Act's emphasis on competitive grants, experience
suggests that increased funding at target authorization
levels might not materialize. Since FY 1995, Congress
has authorized up to $500 million in research funds for
the National Research Initiative (NRI)the primary
vehicle for competitive grants administered by CSREES.
However, Congress has never appropriated more than $180
million for the program in any year. Appropriations never
approached the targets set in the 1996 Farm Act. Another
major competitive grants program authorized in the 2002
Farm Act, the Initiative for Future Agricultural and
Food Systems (IFAFS), was funded for only two years before
being cancelled entirely.
Comparison of recent
authorizations and appropriations for selected
USDA competitive grants programs |
|
NRI |
IFAFS |
|
Million dollars |
Fiscal
Year |
Authorized |
Actual |
Authorized |
Actual |
1997 |
$500 |
$94 |
N/A |
N/A |
1998 |
$500 |
$97 |
$120 |
0 |
1999 |
$500 |
$119 |
$120 |
0 |
2000 |
$500 |
$119 |
$120 |
$120 |
2001 |
$500 |
$106 |
$120 |
$120 |
2002 |
$500 |
$150 |
$120 |
0 |
2003 |
$500 |
$166 |
$120 |
0 |
2004 |
$500 |
$164 |
$140 |
0 |
2005 |
$500 |
$180 |
$160 |
0 |
2006 |
$500 |
$181 |
$200 |
0 |
2007 |
$500 |
$164 |
$200 |
0 |
Source: USDA Budget Summary, FY
1999-2009. |
Mandatory funding is one way to narrow the discrepancy
between authorized and appropriated funding levels. Two
research initiatives in the 2008 Act have significant
levels of mandatory funding: Specialty
Crops Research Initiative (SCRI) and
the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative
(OAREI). The SCRI has mandatory funding of $230 million
for FY 2008-12 along with an additional $100 million
of authorized funds per fiscal year. OAREI is mandated
to receive a total of $78 million for FY 2009-12 along
with an additional $100 million in authorized funding.
However, it is worth noting that even so-called "mandatory
funding" might not be appropriated: for example, the
IFAFS program received little of the funding mandated
under the 2002 Farm Act.
Greater Equity in Funding among Land Grant Universities
Changes to educational institutions focus on bringing
about greater equity in funding. The Nation's 1890s institutions
(also referred to as historically black colleges) will
receive an increasing percentage of formula funds. The
Farm Act includes provisions for grants to upgrade facilities
at minority-serving institutions. Hispanic serving institutions
are eligible to compete for more funding, as is the historically-black
University of the District of Columbia. In the past,
minority-serving institutions have relied more heavily
on formula funds than on competitively awarded funds.
NIFA funding includes provisions to increase the competitiveness
of institutions and researchers who have not fared as
well in the past. Nonetheless, if formula funds continue
to decline as a source of funding for state-level institutions,
the increased proportion of formula funds going to minority-serving
institutions may be offset by the shift to competitive
grants. Legislation to appropriate funds (as opposed
to merely authorizing them) will be key in determining
the distribution of resources among institutions.
Significant Increases for Research on Organic and
Specialty Agriculture
Organic farming has been one of the fastest growing
segments of U.S. agriculture in recent years, and the
mandatory funding for SCRI and OAREI complement the expansion
of Federal support for specialty crop and organic agriculture
in other titles of the Farm Act. Research topics in these
initiatives run from genetics and breeding, through the
production process, to the safety of fresh produce. In
particular, elements of SCRI and OAREI may help to address
the decline in plant breeders of specialty crops (see
Public
Sector Plant Breeding Resources in the U.S.: Study Results
for the year 2001). The
OAREI includes support for breeding seed varieties that
are suitable for use in organic production. The structure
of organic farms differs from that of U.S. agriculture
as a whole, with fruits, vegetables, and other high-value
specialty crops making up a larger proportion of the
organic sector. So this initiative also may help reverse
losses in specialty crop breeders. But because the range
of species that constitute specialty crops is so great
and the allocation among priorities is not explicitly
stated, the degree to which plant breeding benefits of
these initiatives will "spill over" into other areas
of agriculture and outcomes such as nutrition and health
is unknown. Ultimate impacts will depend on the process
by which grants are allocated and awarded, but also on
the level of appropriated funds; future Congresses will
have discretion to direct both of these research areas
through funding decisions.
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