10/01/08 National Institute

US Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Extension Service is getting a new name. BUCHANAN "The National Institute for Food and Agriculture which we like to refer to as the National Institute and it will embrace all of the current activities, authorities and programs that are now embedded in the cooperative states research, education and extension and service." USDA Undersecretary Gale Buchanan says the name change is designed to increase the visibility of research programs to put them on a par with noted scientific organizations like the National Institute for Health and the National Science Foundation. BUCHANAN "There's been a lot of discussions about a National Institute an so this surfaced primarily from other individuals." But it goes beyond just a change of name. In an effort to foster new relationships the National Institute will have newly formed research, economic and education offices covering six areas. BUCHANAN "The vision chiefs for those respective areas will serve as a point of contact in terms of coordination among the programs and all of the agencies embedded in the research, economics and education area. There's some other proposals in the farm bill that we are working on that I think will foster better coordination among all of our programs." Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott