By Natasha Gilbert, February 5, 2016
(Published by Science Magazine)
Farm research backers are making some political gains in their push to double funding for the U.S. government’s premier competitive grants program for agricultural science…Read more.
The Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) Foundation applauds the Obama administration’s budget request of $700 million in FY2017 for the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). If approved by Congress, the increase would double AFRI’s annual budget and fulfill the Congressional authorization passed eight years ago when the program was established as part of the 2008 Farm Bill.
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Innovation is key as farmers and food producers wrestle with unstable markets for their inputs and outputs. This innovation is driven by federally funded agricultural research, which provides the basic research foundation for all of the high-tech answers. As the 2018 Farm Bill is drafted and debated, we look forward to keeping farm science programs like the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative—the USDA’s flagship competitive research program—in the middle of the conversation.
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A new blueprint produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), “Science Breakthroughs 2030,” lays out how research can transform the fields of agriculture and food production. Drawn from an extensive process that incorporated the voices of 146 scientists in dozens of fields, the report highlights potential “breakthroughs” through five critical initiatives of agricultural research that need to be prioritized—microbiomes, gene editing, data analysis, sensors and biosensors, and transdisciplinary collaborations.
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