Released: February 24, 2005

President’s Budget Proposal Includes $3.4 Million Cut for Ag Research in Kansas

MANHATTAN, Kan. – President George W. Bush’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2006 has raised a few eyebrows in farm country, which stands to lose more than $205 million in support for programs that provide research for the industry.

Fred Cholick, the Dean of Kansas State University’s College of Agriculture and Director of K-State Research and Extension, says the President’s proposal will undermine a national network that provides research, teaching and extension at Kansas State and every other land-grant university in the country.

The President’s 2006 fiscal year budget calls for a 50 percent cut in federal support for university research programs, instead directing about two-thirds of that money to competitive grant programs. Nationally, the universities will lose over $105 million in fiscal year 2006.

In fiscal year 2007, an additional $100 million is proposed to be cut, or more than $205 million during two years. The money currently is allocated to United States’ land-grant universities in appropriations commonly known as ‘formula funds,’ which are designed to support infrastructure for conducting research.

“Even though the proposed cuts relate to research, losing this money will negatively affect the teaching and extension programs,” Cholick said. “They all work together. When you cut one out, it affects the others.”

The cuts would eliminate federal support of the Hatch Act – a bill that has provided funding for agricultural research for more than 100 years – and the McIntire-Stennis Act, which supports university work in forestry and natural resources. The President’s plan also calls for immediate and complete elimination of more than $5 million that supports research in animal health and disease at the country’s land-grant universities.

Kansas’ share of the cuts amounts to $1.8 million in formula funds in 2006, and another $1.6 million in 2007. The whole of the cuts ($205 million) is shared by all of the landgrant universities, located in every state and some U.S. territories.

Kansas State University stands to lose funding for 128 graduate students who conduct experiments and are the “next generation of scientists and teachers,” Cholick said. Two full-time and two part-time faculty positions also would be in jeopardy, as well as six staff positions.

The President’s proposal, released the first week of February, includes increased support for related programs, such as the Expanded Food Nutrition and Education Program (EFNEP); eXtension (a proposal to build a national network of extension information delivered through the Internet); and an increase in grant support for teaching.

“There are a lot of positives in that budget to support agricultural research, teaching and extension,” Cholick said. “However, there are some fundamental shifts in the allocation away from the formula dollars to a competitive grants system. Competitive grants are good, but they don’t provide us the dollars to put together the (national and state) network of research, teaching and extension, and we don’t have the time to make the adjustments needed to serve the people of Kansas and the United States.”

Cholick and his colleagues at land-grant universities across the country are working with federal legislators to restore the funding for their state’s programs. They’re also hoping citizens will join the effort.

“Every experiment station across the nation is presently taking a look at what the impact of the budget is going to be,” Cholick said. “It impacts us all differently. But what it ultimately impacts is our ability to serve the people of our states.”

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Pat Melgares
melgares@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News