Stakeholders Briefed On 2007 Farm Bill Proposal On Research
News Date February 20, 2007
The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) held a briefing last week to introduce its CREATE-21 proposal for the 2007 farm bill. CREATE-21 stands for "Creating Research, Extension, and Teaching Excellence for the 21st Century." The proposal involves combining several USDA agencies to streamline the budget and bureaucratic processes. A new agency led by a director and advisory council would be created in USDA to administer the research programs and award grants. The new National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) will adjust the way competitive grants are awarded and change the distribution between competitive and capacity funding to a 70 percent to 30 percent ratio. The competitive funding will support the research and extension projects, while the capacity funding will support the research, extension, and teaching programs conducted at land-grant and other universities.
This system aims to balance the portfolio, increase funding for research grants, and maximize cooperation of programs. NIFA would essentially be an integrated institution with all functions, personnel, programs and activities from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), Economic Research Service (ERS), and the U.S. Forest Service Research and Development (USFS R&D) program combined under the advisory board and director. NASULGC stresses that this proposal will not eliminate the ARS and it will be included in the daily workings of the institute. To learn more about the CREATE-21 proposal visit the website at http://www.create-21.org. Information about the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges can be found at http://www.nasulgc.org. (Contacts: Casey Wong-Buehler and Jennifer Yezak)