(This analysis is a preview of the USDA chapter
in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXX: Research and Development FY
2006, a comprehensive look at the President’s budget for R&D in
FY 2006. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of USDA R&D,
different from figures presented in the AAAS Preliminary
Analysis of February 10. More tables and continually updated supplemental
materials on R&D in the FY 2006 budget can be found on the AAAS R&D
Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), enjoying a record R&D portfolio
this year, would see its R&D funding fall 14.6 percent down to $2.1
billion in 2006 (see Table II-13). Most
of the decline is due to the proposed elimination of congressional earmarks.
- USDA
would dramatically restructure its extramural research portfolio: the
National Research Initiative (NRI) of competitively awarded research
grants would increase $70 million to a record $250 million, while earmarked
Special Research Grants would plummet from $120 million down to $3 million.
Hatch Act formula funding for land-grant colleges would be cut in half
to $89 million, but USDA would create a new $75 million competitive
research grants program for these institutions.
- USDA intramural research would decline 9.6 percent, but the proposed
elimination of earmarks would make room for increases in homeland security-related
research.
- There would
be $59 million in 2006 to complete the renovation of the National Centers
for Animal Health in Ames, Iowa.
USDA R&D in the FY 2006 Budget: Cuts in Earmarks and Formula Funds
to Boost Competitive $
After a large
increase in the FY 2005 budget that brings USDA’s R&D portfolio
to record funding levels, the FY 2006 budget would cut $352 million
or 14.6 percent to bring USDA R&D down to $2.1 billion (see Table
II-13). But with the proposed elimination of $356 million in 2005
congressional research earmarks and reduced facilities construction
needs in 2006, the budget would actually allow for increases in many
R&D program areas. On the extramural side, the elimination of earmarks
would allow for a reshuffling of research funding streams and a big
increase in competitively awarded research grants.
USDA’s
extramural research grants, nearly entirely to colleges and universities,
are administered by the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension
Service (CSREES). Total CSREES R&D would fall $130 million or 20.0
percent in FY 2006 to $520 million, but after subtracting $180 million
in 2005 congressional earmarks there would be increases for the remaining
extramural R&D portfolio. Most of these earmarks are in the nearly
entirely earmarked Special Research Grants program, which would fall
from $120 million this year down to just $3 million in 2006. The remaining
earmarks are in other parts of the CSREES budget, and would be terminated
in the 2006 request.
The National Research Initiative (NRI) of competitively awarded, extramural
research grants would receive a new record of $250 million, up $70 million
from the record $180 million funding level for this year. Part of the increase, however, would be due to
the transfer of some competitive grants currently funded in Integrated
Grants to NRI; the truly new money in 2006 would be roughly $50 million.
USDA would also attempt to make competitive grants more attractive to
potential applicants by proposing to repeal a longstanding limit on
indirect cost reimbursements for USDA grants, currently capped at 20
percent.
USDA also
provides formula funds for agricultural R&D to qualifying institutions
in programs such as the Hatch Act, but USDA proposes to dramatically
restructure this funding stream in 2006. Hatch Act formula funding for
land-grant colleges would be cut in half to $89 million, along with
similar cuts to other formula research grants (in “All Other” in Table
II-13), but USDA would also
create a new $75 million State Agricultural Experiment Competitive Grants
Program of competitive grants just for these institutions (see Table
II-13). The new program would only partially offset the proposed
formula cuts, but land-grant institutions would continue to be the primary
recipients of the expanded NRI grants program.
Most of USDA’s intramural research is performed in
the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). ARS R&D would fall 17.4 percent or $227
million to $1.1 billion because of the proposed elimination of $175
million in research earmarks, the proposed elimination of roughly $60
million in facilities earmarks, and reduced construction needs for the
National Centers for Animal Health in Ames, Iowa. Congress
provided $122 million for the Ames
facility in the FY 2005 budget, and the FY 2006 request of $59 million
would be sufficient to finish the major renovation project. The renovated
National Centers for Animal Health will serve as the nation’s premier
animal research and diagnostic laboratory and will enhance the nation’s
ability to respond to attacks on the food supply as a biosafety
level 3 (BSL-3) facility.
ARS research programs
would receive $996 million, down 9.6 percent from this year, but cuts
in earmarks should allow for modest increases to most ARS research in
areas ranging from livestock production, crop production and protection,
human nutrition, environmental stewardship, to the National Agricultural
Library. The largest increase for ARS would be for homeland security-related
research, surging from $27 million this year to $69 million in 2006
split roughly equally between food supply defense and agriculture defense.
The other
major USDA R&D agency is the Forest Service; the FY 2006 request
for its R&D is $318 million, up $4 million from this year. Although
the primary focus of its R&D portfolio is forestry and ecosystems
research, in recent years the Forest Service has emphasized its fire
science and wildfire management research portfolio as well. Most of
this research is performed in intramural laboratories, although there
is also an extramural fire science grants program that would receive
$17 million in 2006.
Impacts of the USDA R&D Portfolio
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF)
The FY 2006 cuts to USDA R&D bring the portfolio down dramatically
from peaks in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2003 and 2005 (see Figure 1).
USDA R&D has been at historical highs for the past few years. Since hitting
a recent low in FY 1996, the funding trend has been generally upward, first
because the federal budget surplus made more discretionary funds available to
congressional appropriators, then in FY 2000 and FY 2001 from the release of
mandatory competitive research funds, and then since FY 2002 because heightened
concern about agricultural terrorism and the security of USDA laboratories
resulted in millions for security upgrades and other homeland security-related
investments. But with homeland security-related construction needs waning at
locations such as Ames and a push
to eliminate earmarks, the FY 2006 budget would bring USDA R&D down to the
$2 billion level.
Although NRI
hits a new high in 2005 and would go even higher in the 2006 proposal,
the history of competitive agricultural research grants has been mixed
in recent years as Congress and USDA have blocked mandatory competitive
programs, directed the bulk of recent increases to facilities rather
than research, siphoned off NRI dollars to fund earmarks, and repeatedly
fallen short of the original vision of NRI as a $500 million-a-year
program. Late last year, there was a push to create a National Institute
for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) employing an extramural, peer-reviewed
basic research model for agricultural research like the National Institutes
of Health (NIH); advocates hope that a NIFA existing as a semi-independent
agency within USDA would offer a higher profile for basic agricultural
research and perhaps higher dollars. The NIFA proposal did not make
it into the FY 2006 USDA request, but dramatic proposed increases for
competitive grants did.
USDA is the sixth-largest supporter of
R&D in the federal government, and its support is especially important
for key disciplines. USDA is responsible for just 5 percent of all research
support in the broad area of the life sciences, but dominates funding
for two disciplines within life sciences, agricultural sciences and
environmental biology. USDA funds more than 90 percent of all federal
support for the agricultural sciences, with the remainder supported
by the Agency for International Development (for international agriculture
R&D) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (for
aquaculture and other marine-related R&D). USDA is also an important
supporter of chemistry and biology, and represents a majority of federal
support for economics through the Economic Research Service (ERS).
- March 3, 2005
(More materials on R&D in the FY 2006 budget, historical data and
charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXX: R&D FY 2006,
can be found on the AAAS R&D web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
AAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
