SoAR’s Retaking The Field report profiled Lisa Schulte-Moore of Iowa State University who used a USDA AFRI grant to show how strips of native prairie protects soil and water. As a result, The Washington Post featured Dr. Schulte-Moore and her team’s cutting-edge work.
Read Darryl Fears piece: “Iowa farmers ripped out prairie; now some hope it can save them” at http://wpo.st/te-r1.
Scientific research could deliver transformative technologies to the food system over the next decade, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Advances in things like gene editing, data sharing and microbiology could make crops more resilient to climate change and livestock more environmentally sustainable.
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Thanks to leadership from Rep. Rodney Davis and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, the momentum continues to grow for a stronger science capacity within the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA). While the caucus will look at emphasizing research programming in the 2018 Farm Bill negotiations, we also hope they focus on the fiscal year 2018 budget and push back on the cuts to the USDA proposed by the White House.
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Today, the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) Foundation commended the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations for approving a $25 million increase for the USDA’s AFRI program for fiscal year 2017. If this funding level makes it to the finish line, AFRI will have received a 15 percent increase over the past two fiscal years.
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