|
| | ||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| HOME | ABOUT US | CONTACT US | SUBSCRIBE | NEWSSTAND LOCATIONS | ||||
| ||||
|
|
| | |
Budget cuts could take bite out of research labs Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Agri News staff writer
MORRIS, Minn. -- Cuts to the USDA Agricultural Research Service budget could mean closing the North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory in Morris and elimination of research projects at the St. Paul. and Ames, Iowa, labs.
The research projects include the St. Paul lab's cereal research division, working with diseases such as fusarium head blight and rust, and the Ames lab's swine odor and manure management research.
President George Bush's budget calls for an $84 million cut in ARS's more than $1.1 billion budget. ARS officials, when reviewing ways to stay within the remaining budget, has listed 11 lab closures and cuts to 40 research projects across the country.
ARS spokeswoman Sandy Miller Hays stresses the president's budget is a proposa and has yet to clear Congress.
"This is the starting point of what is a very long process," Miller Hays said. "Historically what we wind up with at the end is very different from what we started."
Grand Fork's human nutrition research center is also slated to be closed.
"North Dakota Congressman Earl Pomeroy told the Grand Forks lab employees not to sell their houses just yet," said Sharon Josephson, an aide to Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House ag committee.
Josephson, speaking last week at the West Otter Tail Crop and Forage Show in Fergus Falls, said the budget is coming before a lame duck Congress during the president's last year in office.
Although the lab workers and administrators aren't commenting on the proposed cuts, their service organizations, made up of farmers, ag professionals and conservationists, are.
The Morris lab's support organization, the Barnes Aastad Association, sends five of its members to Washington, D.C., each year to lobby for support. This year they'll meet with many lawmakers and congressional aides to tell their story.
Barnes Aastad Association members learned last Monday of the proposal.
"We were surprised and upset," said Sue Dieter, secretary for the association. "We were really shocked by that. We were already in the process of planning for our annual lobbying trip. This just ramped up our message to Congress."
Association members have been in contact with Peterson's office, have informed Sen. Norm Coleman's staff about the lab's work and heard Sen. Amy Klobuchar discuss the cuts in a speech from the Senate floor, Dieter said.
"We have 37 staff at the lab," she said. "That's a lot of people to be worried about their jobs."
The soils lab's projects include work on the carbon and nitrogen dynamics of plants and soils related to carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions; soil biology in relation to soil quality and land management issues; tillage-induced carbon loss, erosion and soil sustainability; alternative crops and collaboration with the West Central Research Center in Morris and University of Minnesota-Morris on renewable energy projects.
Other labs slated for closure include Watkinsville, Ga.; Coshocton, Ohio; East Lansing, Mich.; Weslaco, Texas; Laramie, Wyoming; Brooksville, Fla.; Brawley, Calif.; Lane, Okla.; and University Park in Pennsylvania.
ARS is the world's largest research system. It has 100 locations. Other ARS labs are located in China, Australia, France and Argentina.
"Some of these labs will do similar research as other locations, but the research becomes specific for a location," Miller Hays said. "While several labs might research soil conservation, each will focus on the needs in their area. Each is unique. But as push came to shove and the ARS had to meet the budget proposal, there was a lot of discussion."
If labs are eliminated, some research staffers affected would be moved to other locations and others offered early retirement packages, Miller Hays said.
|
| | |
| |
Copyright 2008 Agri News
All Rights Reserved
