And What About Research? Unpacking Our Federal Commitment to Agriculture Research and Facilities

by David Rosowsky and Peter Dorhout, August 2023

The massive and far-reaching package of legislation known as the Farm Bill is being updated this fall because the current bill expires on Sept. 30. Included among the legislative debate is funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP), as well as support for continued agricultural research and much-needed investments in research facilities.

The nation’s land-grant universities, independently and working collectively through the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, or APLU, are seeking increased funding for research. Others are focusing their advocacy on food assistance for students at all colleges and universities.

Both advocacy groups are armed with strong arguments.

Agriculture research facilities at our nation’s land-grant universities — those institutions responsible for most of the agriculture teaching, research, innovation, and outreach to farmers, ranchers, and communities — are in dire need of upgrades and expansions, with many of the buildings at leading research universities dating back to the 1950s and 1960s. Space is inadequate, in disrepair, expensive to maintain, unattractive to future students, uncompelling to potential industry partners, and woefully inadequate for current, to say nothing of future, research activities. Relative to investments in facilities for teaching or research in engineering, physical sciences, life sciences business, medicine, veterinary medicine, computing and data sciences, and allied health sciences, investments in agricultural sciences, and agriculture research more broadly, have lagged far behind. Agriculture teaching and research facilities at our nation’s public universities are facing an estimated $11.5 billion deferred maintenance obligation. This is a paralyzing figure and no doubt eclipses those in other disciplines in which regular and continuing investments in infrastructure have been made over the decades.

Food security continues to be a concern in our nation, and more and more food insecure populations are being identified. Food insecurity is now an issue for far more people including those not traditionally classified as being among the lowest socio-economic classes, those with employment stability, and even those with good-paying jobs.?Expanding our production capabilities by improving our workforce, our agriculture technologies, and our education and research facilities will go a long way to addressing our food insecurity.

Most Americans, and even most academic researchers working in agriculture, likely do not fully understand the specific legislation that comprises the Farm Bill and its multi-faceted 12 titles. The current bill invests billions of dollars a year to address food insecurity. The social good of such an investment is obvious. And the economic impact for farmers, growers, and ranchers is similarly clear, even if not as direct. Nevertheless, what’s missing in Title VII, Research and Related Matters, is the investment in our agricultural system – research and innovation, talent attraction and workforce development, and creating meaningful university-industry, and other public-private, partnerships to achieve all of this and their ties to sustaining future food security. In other words, what’s missing is a comprehensive plan with funding for building the future of our nation’s agricultural industries and workforce and securing both our nation’s food system and our global leadership in agriculture and food.

The Farm Bill was last updated in 2018. The bill authorized programs and spending but did not appropriate the funding. That required subsequent action by Congress through the appropriations process. About 76% of the appropriation in the bill supports nutrition-related programs, primarily for SNAP under Title IV.?An additional of the total appropriation supports crop insurance, under Title XI.?The bill also included millions of dollars for agriculture research and extension activities at land-grant universities with a special focus on historically Black colleges and universities. Given the deal passed by Congress this summer to avert a default on the nation’s debt, which capped federal spending for the next two years as part of the compromise deal between parties, no new funds will be appropriated for the Farm Bill, and another cycle of underfunding our future food security has been cemented.

Although the 2018 Farm Bill authorized $700 million annually for agriculture research, annual appropriations have remained flat at about $450 million. Adding greater concerns, the Farm Bill continues to not fund infrastructure and deferred maintenance. The 2018 bill included a modest competitive grant program for capital projects, or facilities upgrades, but Congress did not authorize any funding for it. The FY23 budget has allocated a mere $2 million for infrastructure improvement, effectively ignoring the $11 billion problem.

There are also what are called “capacity grants," including the Hatch Act, Smith-Lever Act, and McIntire-Stennis grants, among others, that provide base funding for agriculture research and extension. Universities can leverage these federal funds to garner additional funds from their states; however, the level of these matching funds varies significantly by state.

APLU has asked Congress to reauthorize a number of long-standing programs to support agriculture research and extension activities. They also have asked for an additional $5 billion over the next five years specifically to upgrade research facilities at land-grant universities – a colossal sum that will go a long way to improving our competitiveness in research and impact on the global food security challenge. Yet, that annualized colossal sum is only 0.02% of the entire U.S. annual budget and only 0.004% of the annual U.S. gross domestic product.?According to the United State Department of Agriculture Economic Research Services reports, the current scale of the U.S. agriculture and food production GDP contributes to 5% of the total GDP.?Put into context, to ensure global competitiveness and national security, this meager investment of $5 billion will have oversized impact on our national GDP and will contribute significantly to the GDP of traditional agriculture states like Kansas and Iowa, where the contributions of agriculture to state GDPs are 7% and 11%, respectively.

Leading in agriculture, including several deans of colleges of agriculture and directors of centers, institutes, and agricultural experiment stations, have weighed in with strong support. These leaders and many others, whether from land-grant universities or private industry, have pointed to the urgency of federal investment in our nation’s agricultural industry, economies, and future – at higher levels and with greater focus on agriculture research, innovation, infrastructure, and workforce. Michael Boehm, vice chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, said in Inside Higher Ed, “The Farm Bill provides the competitive and the capacity funds to keep American innovation and agriculture moving forward. In order for us to stay ahead and be competitive, we need to put a focus on ag innovation and funding for ag research and ag infrastructure, and then extending that knowledge to the people of the world.” Ernie Minton, dean of the College of Agriculture at Kansas State University, added “There’s just too much on the line, and we really must make some critical investments as a nation in that. Food security long term depends on us being more up-to-date and modern with regards to our facilities.”

Our nation’s food and economic security depend on significant and sustained investments in our agriculture research facilities; as do our global standing, global reach, and global impact as a leader in food and agriculture. We must acknowledge, accept, and run toward a bright new future for the practice and profession of agriculture. And we must recognize that failure to invest is an existential threat to our nation’s agriculture economy, food system, innovation leadership, and economic prosperity of families, businesses, and communities. Food security is national security.

That bright future is one that leverages our vast agriculture knowledge and experience with advanced technologies such as AI, data sciences, ag cybersecurity, robotics, UAV/UAS; scientific advances in genetics, infectious disease, the soil microbiome, and nutrient management; and rapid growth/interest in exciting new domains such as digital agriculture, precision agriculture, regenerative agriculture, the carbon economy, the changing climate, and the circular bioeconomy.

U.S. agriculture can lead the world in solving the grand challenges in food, water, animal health, climate, and the environment. We can do this while creating jobs, preparing the new workforce, inventing new technologies, and launching entire industries. We can conduct research and development, work with our vast network of partners to demonstrate proofs-of-concepts and efficacies and become known for innovation and economic impact at levels historically associated only with big tech, big pharma, and more recently alternative energy.

Our researchers and educators are ready. Our farmers and ranchers are ready. Our ag-related industries are ready. But our facilities are simply not up to the task.

We can neither bring together these domains of expertise to find needed solutions and advance them into practice, nor create new knowledge, new technologies, new companies, or the talent needed to drive them without having state-of-the-art and safe facilities. The classrooms and laboratories of the 1950s are neither adequate nor appropriate for this bold agenda and necessary leap forward. We must invest in the facilities of the 2050s. Today.

David Rosowsky is vice president for research at Kansas State University

Peter Dorhout is vice president for research at Iowa State University

Note: A shorter version of this article appeared as an op-ed in Agri-Pulse (8/11/23)