Severe cuts affect agriculture programs
Published April 17, 2007
The College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources will no longer receive funding to begin several programs and will be forced to downsize some existing projects because of federal earmark cuts.
CAFNR lost more than $16 million in federal earmarks due to congressional budget cuts, which amounted to a total of $186 million in earmarks.
Earmarks provide funding to specific areas and are add-ons to bills by legislators for their district. They are considered "pork-barrel spending," making them one of the first things to be cut when reducing a budget.
Even with these cuts, the bill provides for a reallocation of some of the funds through the formula funding mechanism, which will give the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station $4 million of the expected $16 million.
These funds will be a one-time allocation and will be used for critical personnel positions, but there will not be sufficient funds for all programs and positions, U.S. Sen. Kit Bond's spokesman Charles Chamberlayne stated in an e-mail. There is enough to cover the salaries of all positions through the end of this federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
On June 22, 2006, Bond, R-Mo., and former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., secured millions in federal funds for high-priority agriculture projects at the University of Missouri in the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The spending bill passed the Senate Committee on Appropriations, according to a news release from Bond's office.
"Sen. Bond and I are pleased to announce this funding for the University of Missouri-Columbia," stated Talent, who was a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, in the same release from Bond's office. "Funding for these critical research projects at the university will improve the health and viability of our agriculture industry."
But these bills were not passed before Congress reconvened, and the earmarks were stripped under the rules of the 110th Congress, Chamberlayne stated.
The spending bill previously included funding for projects including Illinois-Missouri Biotechnology Alliance at MU for plant biotech research and design. This project would have received approximately $1.16 million.
Another project involved rice agronomy at MU, and would have received $248,000 in funding to conduct studies that examine different planting techniques to maximize rice yields.
The funding that was cut would have also allowed continuation of funding to research farming and ecosystems for the Center for Agroforestry at MU.
Rural Policies Research Institute was allotted approximately $1.19 million. The institute would have conducted quantitative, objective analysis of agricultural policy alternatives.
Jake Fisher, superintendent at the Delta Research Center, said he is disappointed by the most recent cuts.
"It will be very devastating," he said. "Research you can't just turn on and off like a spigot."
The Delta Research Center, located in southern Missouri, works with the MU Extension and conducts research for the university and is one of the casualties of these cuts.
Fisher said he is not sure what measures will need to be taken to compensate at this point in time, but he will decide in the future. He said there would be no personnel cuts this year, but most likely, there will be some next year.
Some of the programs that will be affected include a soybean research program, which has been ongoing for about 27 years, the irrigation research program and the rice research program. Fisher did not know if the rice and irrigation would be able to continue, but the soybean program would need to be cut down drastically.
Another problem with these cuts, especially with the problem of losing personnel, is that researchers have worked on these projects for years, and it will be hard losing people this far along, Fisher said.
"You have to grow into these projects," he said.
Fisher has been superintendent at the Delta Research Center for 46 years, and he has seen cuts before. He said he has never seen anything this severe.