NIFA: future of agricultural research
Oct 29, 2009 10:37 AM, By David Bennett, Farm Press Editorial Staff
Launched in early October, the new National Institute of Food and Agriculture carries the hopes of many: hope that NIFA will find answers to increasingly daunting questions about feeding the world, hope that agricultural science will attain the status in the United States that it deserves, hope that the institute will streamline funding for agricultural research.
“The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that food production will need to double by 2050 to meet demand, and this has to happen in an environment where our production system already is under threat,” said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack at a press conference announcing NIFA.
“USDA science needs to change to respond to these pressures, to ensure the sustainability of the American food, fuel, and fiber system, and to address some of America’s — and the world’s — most intractable problems. … Formed in the main from the existing Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, NIFA will be the (USDA’s) extramural research enterprise. It is no exaggeration to say that NIFA will be a research ‘start-up’ company — we will be rebuilding our competitive grants program from the ground up to generate real results for the American people.”
Few know that NIFA was an idea pushed by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) during the last farm bill write-up. In late September, D.C. Coston, vice president for Agriculture and University Extension at North Dakota State University and a member of the APLU’s Board of Agriculture Assembly, testified before the House Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research Committee on Agriculture. It is no exaggeration to say the latest farm bill “reshaped the USDA science structure and reauthorized the many research, extension, and teaching programs that sustain land-grant universities and related institutions” across the nation, Coston told the committee.
The Association of Public and Land Grant Universities is the national association that includes all the land-grant universities and other public institutions.
Now back at his job in Fargo, Coston says Title Seven of the farm bill “essentially authorizes all the research and education done through USDA for the life of each farm bill. Most people think of the farm bill as having two big components: the commodity programs and nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Most people have no clue the farm bill has anything to do with teaching, research, Extension and related things. Well, these are key ingredients also.”
