Abstract
The Department of Agriculture has declined to endorse a report just issued by the National Research Council calling for a $500 million boost in annual federal funding for agricultural research supported by competitive grants. The increase would expand by 11 times USDA's competitive research grants program and further open up the agricultural research system to scientists excluded from that establishment. I would like to be able to endorse the funding program proposed in the initiative, says Charles E. Hess, assistant secretary for science and education at USDA, but to be perfectly candid, we operate within the constraints of the federal budget. Hess adds, however, that the report accurately portrays the we now face. The report was produced from internal funds of NRC's Board on Agriculture whose chairman is Theodore L. Hullar of the University of California, Davis. It says that four challenges facing U.S. agriculture—competition from other countries, improvement of food quality, preserva...
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