PUBLIC AFFAIRS

ASPB Supports National Institute of Food and Agriculture for Competitive Research

On June 5, ASPB sent a letter to sponsors June 5 supporting the National Institute of Food and Agriculture Act of 2006, S. 2782. The bill is sponsored by Senators Jim Talent (R-MO), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Christopher Bond (R-MO), and Richard Lugar (R-IN).

The bill would create a National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Sponsors are expected to seek inclusion of S. 2782 in the Farm Bill next year. If enacted, the bill would authorize $245 million in competitive, peer-reviewed research project grants in FY2007. The authorization calls for yearly increases in funding reaching $966 million in FY2011, including project grants and multidisciplinary grants.

Authorization bills authorize funding. For the authorized funds to be spent, a subsequent appropriations bill providing funding would be needed. Recent introduction of the bill is the major first step in a path that some predict will lead to enactment of this research authorization measure.

NIFA would be composed of a standing council of advisers with 25 members, including the director. The director for NIFA, who report to the secretary of agriculture, would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Twelve members would be scientists, as determined by the secretary, and 12 would be members of the public.

The ASPB letter of support was signed by ASPB President Mike Thomashow, Committee on Public Affairs chair Pamela Ronald, Committee on Public Affairs member Gary Stacey, past chair of the ASPB Board of Trustees Douglas Randall, ASPB Past President Ralph Quatrano, and ASPB member Roger Beachy of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

Following are major portions of the letter of support:

As noted in the bill, the opportunities to advance fundamental knowledge of benefit to agriculture in the United States have never been greater. Many of these new opportunities are the result of extraordinary progress in the life sciences during recent decades. We fully agree that new technologies and concepts have expedited advances in the fields of genetics, cell and molecular biology and proteomics. We acknowledge with you the importance to agriculture of research to understand ways in which cells and organisms function.

As the bill notes, the capability of the nation to be internationally competitive in agriculture is threatened by inadequate investment in research. S. 2782 provides additional funds for basic research contributing to agriculture that will help America’s farmers become more competitive in the global market.

The legislation would make possible further research to develop foods that improve health; would decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil by developing fuels and materials from plants, thereby boosting rural economies, reducing U.S. trade deficits and contributing to national security; create new and more useful products from plants and animals; improve food safety and security by protecting plants and animals from insects, diseases and the threat of bioterrorism; enhance agricultural sustainability and competitiveness; improve the environment; strengthen national security through improving agricultural productivity in poor nations now vulnerable to destabilizing effects of hunger; and revitalize agricultural research facilities.

Major causes of widespread crops losses include abiotic stresses, such as drought, heat, cold and freezing, and biotic stresses caused by pathogens and insects. We therefore encourage you to include in S. 2782 the goal of understanding basic mechanisms of abiotic and biotic stress tolerance in plants. In addition, continued furthering of our understanding of plant genomes, and support for research making use of genome discoveries, will be critical for achieving a number of the fundamental and applied goals now listed in the proposed legislation.

We appreciate that the bill calls for the Institute to conduct research that enhances and does not replace research conducted by other agencies and programs of the Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation or National Institutes of Health….

This essential need to preserve funding for existing research agencies is included in the bill and strongly supported by the sponsors. ASPB and other stakeholder groups supporting NIFA join with the sponsors in emphasizing the importance of continued support for existing research agencies.