07/28/08 Specialty crop research funds available

Washington Ag July 28, 2008 One of the new initiatives in the 2008 Farm Bill was for specialty crops. And the USDA recently announced it is making over 28 million dollars available for research and extension this fiscal year to address critical needs of the specialty crop industry. A total of 230 million is available over the life of the farm bill. Tom Bewick of USDA's Coopertative State Research, Education and Extension Service says the specialty crop research initiative has five focus areas. Bewick: "The first one is research in plant breeding, genetics and genomics to improve crop characteristics. The second is efforts to identify and address pests and diseases including threats to specialty crop pollinators. The third is efforts to improve production efficiency, productivity and profitability over the long term. The fourth is new innovations and technology including improved mechanization and technologies that improve or delay ripening. And the fifth is methods to prevent, detect, monitor, control and respond to potential food safety hazards in the production and processing of specialty crops including fresh produce." Research entities can request grant applications by going to www.grants.gov I'm Bob Hoff.