Vilsack defends ag research

Farm and Ranch September 26, 2011 As Congress mulls over the federal budget many are concerned about big cuts in agricultural research.

Vilsack: “Those who are concerned about it have reason to be concerned.”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack who told an audience last week;

Vilsack: “The research is fairly clear that when you begin to flatline your commitment to agricultural research you will also begin to flatline the productivity of agriculture.”

Which he said would be a recipe for disaster as the world’s population grows but land for food production stays the same or even shrinks.

Vilsack: “And my hope is that people understand that in these tight budget times the one place that we ought not to reduce is in this research area in a significant way because you will in essence be crippling your capacity to grow in the future. I think what we want to do is we want to get people to work today but we also want to build a solid foundation for sustained growth in the future and in agriculture that requires additional research.”

Vilsack said research was boosted recently for food safety and nutrition but there has not been much put into basic work for production agriculture.

According to the USDA each dollar spent on public agricultural research has returned roughly $10 in benefits to the economy and those benefits are shared widely through out the economy. Earlier this year the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology released a paper which said U.S. agricultural productivity has begun to slow as public ag research expenditures have grown by only sixth-tenths of a percent between 1990 and 2009.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.