NIFA: future of agricultural research
Oct 29, 2009 10:37 AM, By David Bennett, Farm Press Editorial Staff
More on funding
Four new programs were created under the 2008 farm bill: organic agriculture research, specialty crops in Extension (usually research on fruits and vegetables), biomass research and development, and a program to provide educational support for beginning farmers and ranchers. The four are to receive “mandatory” funding.
“In the congressional process, there are effectively two types of legislation: authorizing and appropriations. Authorizing legislation says ‘Congress believes this program could have great value to the nation. We authorize its creation and the expenditure of up to’ — then they usually attach a certain amount of money. On an annual basis, Congress allocates money to those authorizations through the appropriations committees.”
Essentially, the agriculture committees are authorizers. So, the farm bill is actually authorizing legislation having to do with USDA programs for a five-year period.
“Once you get into funding, there are two types: mandatory and discretionary. Mandatory are things that Congress has actually declared ‘we’ll do this no matter what.’ Discretionary is exactly what it sounds like.
“Many of the things that we think of as government fall under the discretionary category. Mandatory typically includes things like defense, social support programs, Medicare/Medicaid, payment on the national debt, etc. Some 65 to 70 percent of the U.S. government expenditures are on mandatory programs.”
It’s easy to see why everyone wants their program in the mandatory column. But in the world of bureaucrats, warns Coston, mandatory doesn’t mean unequivocal. In fact, he told the subcommittee that in the past, mandatory funds have been “routinely raided” to pay for other things.
“You may wonder ‘why would university folks get mired in congressional politics?’ But if you look at the way funding works, you’d understand. I’m not being diplomatic, I’m telling you what happened. The initiative for future ag and food systems was, as I recall, created in the 1998 research title tied to the 1997 farm bill.
“Anyway, they put funds in it and only supported work for one year. What ended up happening is the appropriators got fussy about it as they believe funding should be decided on an annual basis. The funding was used for other activities such as flood relief over subsequent years. We just want to say ‘if it’s mandatory, then fund the thing.’”
If carried out, Coston believes the current USDA/agriculture research set-up “will benefit agriculture and rural America. Land-grant universities and others that do agricultural research are critical components of that. We’ll be monitoring everything and if changes are needed, we’ll be making recommendations.
“What this will do is make sure we have the ability to supply the information and technology that agriculture in its broadest sense, needs; that we’ll be able to do the research and get it out to practitioners and, due to the higher education programs included in this, we’ll be able to train folks so they’re ready to take on research jobs when folks like me retire.
“That’s vitally important for our future and is why we’ve spent so much time and effort with this. It’s a vested self-interest of the United States to do this.”
e-mail: dbennett@farmpress.com
