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agricultural research

More and more, industry calls the shots on ag research

Legislators and governors have scaled back funding for state universities in recent years, and one result is that industry funding has become more important, says the New Food Economy. “And with industry money comes industry priorities.”

WSU’s Bread Lab gets endowed chair from Clif Bar, King Arthur Flour

The Bread Lab, a research institution at Washington State University that focuses on local grains, was awarded a $1.5-million endowment so that it can further its work breeding grains adapted to organic farming practices, Clif Bar announced.

R&D for ag deserves more funding – get it from subsidies, says AEI

Agricultural productivity growth is slowing down in the United States because of a decline in spending on food and ag research, says the free-market American Enterprise Institute, presenting a long-term threat to domestic food production and international competitiveness. The authors of an AEI position paper said funding on research and development should double and said it could be offset by cutting "wasteful farm bill spending" in crop insurance and crop subsidies.

Ag and food research is short-changed, says report

The USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, a program for competitive grants, is running on half of the money that was anticipated when Congress created AFRI 10 years ago, says a report by a group of ag researchers. "Federal investment in food sciences has remained flat as the number of threats to our food system continues to climb," said Thomas Grumbly of the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR). The groups says ag research should be a top priority in the 2018 farm bill.

White House stands by Clovis for USDA chief scientist

President Trump supports the nomination of Sam Clovis to serve as USDA chief scientist despite court documents showing that his former campaign co-chair encouraged foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos to meet Russian officials surreptitiously, said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. The court documents put Clovis, the most controversial USDA nominee in 15 years, back into the public spotlight and may delay action on the nomination.

California congressman backs organic-ag research bill

Congressman Doug LaMalfa, a Republican representing Northern California's first district, joined a bipartisan effort to increase funding for the USDA Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI). The bill, originally sponsored by Reps. Chellie Pingree of Maine, Dan Newhouse of Washington, and Jimmy Panetta of California, seeks to renew OREI and increase its funding to $50 million per year.

Farm bill should double federal funding of agricultural research

Five dozen scientific, farm and activists groups proposed annual increases in federal funding for agricultural research to reach $6 billion over the life of the 2018 farm bill, double the amount now allotted. The groups, "involved in almost every facet of the U.S. agricultural sector," said the two-to-one return on ag research justifies the investment when competitors such as China are taking command of the field.

Monsanto no longer allowed at European parliament

Monsanto has been banned from attending European parliament proceedings after the corporation refused to appear for a parliamentary hearing, slated for October 11, to investigate regulatory interference. Monsanto is accused of influencing studies on the safety of the glyphosate, the primary ingredient in the company’s weedkiller Roundup.

Researchers, UC-Davis go to court over the fruit of labor on fruit

Strawberry researcher Douglas Shaw "found himself in a legal jam," says The Associated Press in covering a dispute in which UC-Davis is suing Shaw and his research partner, "alleging they stole the school's intellectual property by taking some of the fruits of their research with them" when they left the school. The scientists have filed a $45-million countersuit that says UC-Davis is sitting on their advances.

To stay ahead, U.S. should double ag R&D spending, says report

U.S. spending on agricultural research has flat-lined and jeopardizes American standing as a leader in ag innovation while Brazil, China and India together out-spend the United States 2-to-1, according to a briefing paper by two University of Minnesota researchers. The paper calls "for a doubling of such spending ov

What government spends the most on ag research?

The world's largest farm exporter and a leader in agricultural innovation, the United States, has been supplanted by China, by a 2-to-1 margin, in terms of public funding for agricultural research and development. Chinese ascendancy came in part due to a decline in U.S. funding, which "may have negative implication for agricultural productivity" when dealing with new pests and diseases and climate change, say three USDA economists.

Almost no money spent studying the effects of pesticides on the environment

Little research and scant funding is directed toward the ecological impacts of pesticides, says a new report published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. “Fewer than 1 percent of published ecological studies over the past 25 years mentioned synthetic chemicals, according to the researchers, who looked at papers in 20 mainstream ecology journals,” said Ensia.

Cuba has plenty of fertile farmland, but is far from feeding itself

Cuba imports about 70-80 percent of it food, spending roughly $2 billion annually, but it has enormous potential to produce far more on its own and even export high-value crops to the U.S., due to its incredibly rich soils, says Pedro Sanchez, a renowned tropical soils specialist at the University of Florida.

Global ag research system faces upheaval in funding, focus, partners

Credited with saving hundreds of millions of people from hunger, international ag research organizations will need to change their focus, funding base and partnerships to survive in coming years, says economist Derek Byerlee in a paper prepared for the 50th anniversary of one of the groups.

Cutting pesticides by getting them to ‘stick’ to plants

Researchers at MIT figured out a way to get pesticides to better adhere to plant leaves, cutting the amount they sprayed by 90 percent and yielding similar results, according to Modern Farmer.

Premature aging of Dolly, the cloned sheep, seen as an anomaly

In 2002, when Dolly the sheep, the first truly cloned mammal, died at the age of six, scientists studied her telomeres — the structure at the end of DNA strands that shorten with age — and found that Dolly’s were much shorter than they should be. Initially, scientists thought this meant clones would age prematurely, following the biological clock of the original cells. If so, it would be a terrible prospect for cloned human organs.

National Academy of Sciences to award $100,000 ag and food prize

$100,000 NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences. The prize, to recognize "a mid-career scientist at a U.S. institution who has made contribution" to the fields, would join the $250,000 World Food Prize as a prestigious award for work in food and agriculture.

Obama to ask for doubling of funds for USDA ag research program

After years of gradual increases in funding, the administration will seek $700 million for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, said White House science advisor John Holdren.

Trump puts agriculture on list of potential ‘wealth fund’ investments

In a speech on Thursday, former president Donald Trump included “new and modern agricultural techniques” on a crowded list of potential investments from a yet-to-be-created wealth fund that might be bankrolled by import tariffs.

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