We want better agricultural research, but who will take the lead?

The relocation of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Economic Research Service (ERS) out of the nation’s capital region has been accomplished. 

These agencies, at least what’s left of them, are now ensconced in Kansas City, Missouri. Contrary to Secretary Sonny Perdue’s positive spin, our agricultural research system will not be made better by this action.

I strongly opposed this relocation as soon as I heard of the plan. My opposition to the relocation had been well documented in op-ed’s, articles, testimony before the House agriculture appropriations subcommittee, webinars, and letters. 

While opposition to the relocation was not universal by senior agricultural leaders of the nation’s Land-grant Universities, I cannot recall any issue that has garnered as much interest and concern. 

I want to thank my many fellow Land-grant University colleagues around the U.S. who supported the opposition and who worked to get the secretary to reconsider his plan for the relocation of these agencies or to consider alternative strategies to accomplish his goals seriously.

Unfortunately, we failed, and the fact remains — the agencies have now been relocated and are in Kansas City. For those of us who opposed this relocation, the reasonable question is, “What is the next step, and who will lead?”

As I see it, there are three options:

1. Just quit. Don’t do anything. Just wait and understand and accept whatever happens next.

2. Keep fighting. Just keep whipping a dead horse. Maybe with enough whipping, we could resurrect this old dead horse — but I doubt it.

3. Accept the fact we were not successful and work with the broader agricultural research community to truly make agricultural research better.

The third option will benefit our country the most, and we all should commit to working together to make agricultural research better. The demands and expectations of agriculture are real and will only grow in the years ahead. 

As global populations continue to increase, the demand for food will continue to escalate. But this is only a part of the challenge — there is almost a universal increase in expectations of all people. Those with limited food security want more food with greater security. Those who are food secure want greater diversity and better quality of food. 

While global climate issues will have many far-reaching impacts on society, agriculture is particularly vulnerable. Also, the world geopolitical climate and the potential for instability places unique demands on agriculture. 

The solution to many of the challenges we face can only be met by dedicated and well-orchestrated agricultural research. While some countries, such as China, are enhancing their support for agricultural research, we are failing to keep pace.

I am committed to doing everything I can to make our agricultural research system better. 

Where do we start? Here are some ideas. Offer total and unquestioned support for the scientists, staff, and administrators of the agencies that have been relocated. Of course, we lost many excellent personnel, but we still have a core of great people. 

They deserve our support. We should work to find well-qualified replacements for the personnel we lost — and not just from universities around Kansas City.

We should appreciate the fact that we have good leadership of the agencies. I’m confident they will be successful in making the best of the current situation.

We should also work together to ensure our agricultural research system takes advantage of the many opportunities afforded by innovations and new technologies. 

These opportunities include CRISPR, artificial intelligence, precision agriculture, and auto-steering vehicles. 

The recent National Academy study, “Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural research by 2030”, provides an excellent outline of such emerging technologies. 

To adequately take advantage of emerging technologies to meet the challenges of climate change, growing populations, food security, and uncertain water resources, we need to make agricultural research a priority. An important aspect of doing so is addressing agrarian research funding. 

The U.S. has rightly increased substantially over the last several decades of research funding for biomedical research, energy, defense and space research, and extensive basic research. USDA’s funding of basic research, however, has lagged far behind. 

In the 1970s, basic research funding for each of these areas was differed by about a factor four. Over the last four decades, that spread has ballooned to a factor of 17 with agriculture at the bottom at approximately one billion dollars.

Increasing our federal investments in agricultural research funding is one important and essential way to address the challenges of feeding our growing population this century. 

It is time to move beyond debating whether USDA’s relocation of these two agencies will ultimately improve our agricultural research system.

While this relocation is a temporary setback, we need to work together to ensure the system is organized, resourced, and supported to meet our present and future agricultural challenges. The question today is who will take the lead — the executive branch, the legislative branch, or maybe a cross-section of agricultural leaders.

Gale Buchanan was the USDA chief scientist and undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics under President George W. Bush and dean of agriculture at the University of Georgia. He is the author of “Feeding the World: Agricultural Research in the Twenty-First Century” and “Branch Research Stations in Agriculture: History, Development, Operation, and Future.”