D Dollars

SEARCHING FOR IDENTITY: USDA Undersecretary Mylie Gonzalez wants to give the agency a higher research profile. Image is everything for federal agencies that compete for a frozen pool of research dollars. Congress associates the National Institutes of Health with cancer cures, the National Science Foundation with sound basic research, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with subsidies, according to USDA officials. Although USDA will spend $1.6 billion on basic and applied research in nutrition and food safety in 1998, "we don't really have a research identity," says Mylie Gonzalez, USDA Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics (REE). That's not to say the department doesn't have a research agenda. REE promotes five general research goals: making American agriculture competitive in a global economy, providing a safe food system, increasing the nutrition of the U.S. population, providing harmony between farming and the environment, and promoting rural development. However, that agenda, and USDA's identity as a research institution, tend to be obscured by the department's other functions, Gonzalez points out. Among other areas of responsibility, the department funds the Forest Service; provides support for farmers through its Agriculture Extension Service; offers nutrition programs like Women, Infants and Children (WIC); subsidizes crops; and distributes commodities. By contrast, agencies like NSF and NIH focus mainly on research. NIH's $13.6 billion R&D budget is almost 10 times greater than USDA's research fund. NIH has also enjoyed congressional support, while USDA R&D has languished. Congress hiked NIH's budget from $12.75 billion in 1997 to $13.648 billion for FY1998, a 7.3 percent increase, or a 4.7 percent increase after inflation. Meanwhile, USDA's R&D budget was the only federal agency for nondefense-related R&D to fall behind inflation in 1998 (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, Nov. 24, 1997, page 4). The agency's R&D budget has failed to top its 1994 level (see graph). And in 1998, the agency no longer will provide money to help construct university-based agricultural research facilities. A broader issue may be Congress' general perception of USDA-sponsored research-that it benefits only a shrinking pool of farmers, relates only indirectly to health, and sometimes appears redundant. "There's a perception out there that we're doing duplicate work," Gonzalez says. USDA has a history of such duplication-especially in funding facilities (see accompanying story), which in some instances are "the purest of pork," according to Tim Sanders, clerk of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. He also agrees that the agency suffers in comparison with NIH and NSF, which have broader political support. "Everybody loves NIH. Everybody loves the National Cancer Institute," he contends. USDA "will never be in the same league," because people do not associate it with biomedical research. USDA research actually has fared better than expected following the balanced budget agreement, Sanders asserts. He notes that the agency's in-house research arm and grants to outside researchers both exceeded President Clinton's request for 1998, even though every other federal R&D program made higher gains. Sanders forecasts that USDA research budget for 1999 will be "lucky to keep up with inflation." President Clinton's USDA priorities include expanding the WIC program, which helps provide new mothers and their children with nutritional food, and boosting food safety, which may include some additional research funding. Sanders agrees that USDA R&D may be a victim of the agency's sprawling domain, as well as the mechanisms by which Congress determines budgets. Under the balanced-budget agreement, the pot of money for domestic programs remains relatively flat for five years. Congress then divvies up that number among 13 subcommittees, which in turn decide how much to give to each agency. Agriculture deans at institutions across the United States may remember 1998 as the year the federal building funds dried up. FY1998 is the first year since 1984 that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) failed to provide money to build or maintain university research facilities. BUILDING JEOPARDY: Delays in promised USDA funding for a containment facility have jeopardized the project, says UC-Davis ag dean Barbara Schneeman. The lack of dollars has stalled construction of a containment and quarantine facility at the University of California, Davis. The project was proposed in 1990, then delayed several times as the university waited for increments of money from the federal government. Agricultural researchers there had anticipated building quarantine facilities to study pests like the medfly and develop new biological control agents that could reduce chemical pesticides for crops. The university had requested $17 million from USDA, and the state government had agreed to match the federal funds. The total $35 million price tag included the larger Davis facility and a smaller one to test the agents on insects at UC-Riverside. However, the project got delayed, then USDA eliminated the last of the funds for university facilities in 1998. As a result, the Davis facility was denied the last $7.5 million the government had earlier pledged. While the Riverside facility will proceed, the Davis facility has been delayed indefinitely, says Barbara Schneeman, dean of the school's agricultural and environmental sciences. UC-Davis and other universities received ample warning that USDA funds for university buildings were coming to an end, according to Tim Sanders, clerk of the House Agriculture Appropriations Committee. In the conference report for the 1996 USDA budget, the subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Joe Skeen (R-N.Mex.), wrote that the agency would complete projects already under way, but it would fund no more new projects. Sanders recalls that the committee made the decision to stop funding university buildings because the process became increasingly political. "Universities were coming to members of Congress and saying, 'go find me some money,'" Sanders says. "It sort of got out of hand." Committee members also questioned the necessity of some of the buildings, labeling some pork-barrel projects, Sanders recounts. Schneeman understands Congress' needs to eliminate pork. "I think it's fair for Congress to be concerned about that," she says. But the proposed UC-Davis facility had potential to supply more knowledge in an area that could benefit national agricultural practices. Helping to provide research facilities is an appropriate role of the government, she asserts. "The need for federal dollars is critically important." Roger Wyse, dean of the University of Wisconsin, Madison's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, says federal matching funds encourage contributions from the state and private donors: "It shows a broad support of the concept." The university has had difficulty raising money for new greenhouses since federal matching funds dried up, he says. The state pledged $2 million, if the university raises the additional $3 million necessary to complete the project, but fund-raising has been slow. Wyse anticipates problems with maintenance and renovation for the nation's older buildings. Projects like replacing chemical hoods or updating heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems are necessary, but private donors prefer attaching their names and dollars to new projects, rather than renovating old buildings. "No one wants to say they put their name on a wiring system." FUZZY LINE: Some agricultural research facilities that may appear to duplicate others actually serve complimentary roles, explains Arkansas' Milo Shult. Mylie Gonzalez, undersecretary of USDA's Office of Research Education and Economics, says a committee is investigating all USDA programs and facilities and will announce its findings in 1999. In the meantime, he expects more sharing of facilities between Agriculture Research Service (ARS) scientists-USDA's in-house researchers-and university scientists. USDA's budget for building ARS facilities remains intact. "It's going to be in everyone's best interest to combine things." Such relationships have already been established, explains Milo Shult, vice president for agriculture the University of Arkansas system in Little Rock. ARS and university scientists share a U. Arkansas poultry research building in Fayetteville, Ark. But the university also has an example of what some members of Congress would consider duplication. In Stuttgart, Ark., a federally funded ARS building designated for rice germ plasm research sits on university-owned land across a parking lot from a university-owned rice research. The ARS building is designed for basic genetic research, while the university property holds facilities for more applied sciences. "We're not duplicating efforts," Shult says. But he acknowledges that some members of Congress may be unwilling or unable to make the distinction between basic and applied research.-P.S. "The research component gets lost in the overall budget," explains Charles E. Hess, former USDA assistant secretary for science and education and now director of international programs at the University of California, Davis. Previous attempts to increase the amount the agency allocates for grants to investigators have met with limited success. Hess attempted to boost the National Research Initiative (NRI), a competitive granting program, to $500 million from $40 million in 1989. President Bush approved the move, but Congress never provided the dollars. The fund did increase to about $100 million and has hovered in that area until FY1998, where it rose to $140 million. Hess says he was frustrated with the lack of support for the NRI, since it provides Congress what members say they want-competitive grants with more accountability. A large NRI would also advance research, Hess says. "We felt it would be important to attract the best scientists." Instead, many health and nutrition researchers don't bother applying, since the success rate remains poor owing to the limited funds. "They have many more good proposals that aren't being funded," Hess says. MAKING THE CASE: Cornell ag dean Daryl Lund believes USDA needs to communicate the importance of its research. Part of the reason that USDA's research budget has garnered little support from Congress is that the agency and scientists who depend upon it have done a poor job communicating the importance of their research, contends Daryl B. Lund, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. "We simply have not made a compelling case for ag-related science." NIH and NSF, on the other hand, have done a good job defining their work, he says, noting that NIH, in particular, has been supported because it focuses on headline-grabbing diseases like AIDS and cancer. "Those are pretty tough headlines to compete with." Funding has eroded as a result, which bothers Lund because other R&D budgets have increased during the same time period. "We are underfunded," Lund states. "We have lost purchasing power over the last half decade. We have seen a steady decrease in funding where both DOD [the Department of Defense] and HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] have seen increases." Lund doesn't think agencies like NIH should grow at the expense of others, like USDA. To gain future parity, USDA needs to define an agricultural research agenda, then set some priorities and fund them, because the department's current goals may be too general, unlike NIH's more defined research priorities, he says. USDA could have a clearer research identity, agrees Sarah Mazie, REE budget coordinator. The USDA research branch does have goals, but the perception that it doesn't remains. "Perceptions are real. One has to deal with them." To change those perceptions, the agency should provide more specific goals and actively promote them, asserts Roger Wyse, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "I think the USDA needs to provide stronger leadership to address the needs and develop support for the agenda. I think the USDA needs to be very aggressive, very vocal." The entire ag-related science budget doesn't necessarily have to come out of USDA's research budget, Wyse maintains. He estimates that more than half of his department's research grants come from NIH. However, proposing specific research initiatives, then funding them has been the exception, rather than the rule, for Congress. USDA should build off the recent Food Safety Initiative, which provided $40 million from the Food and Drug Administration, Health and Human Services, and USDA, he asserts. Wyse challenges the agency to show leadership by proposing a partnership similar to the Food Safety Initiative that would support the study of plant genomes, an important area of basic science that, in the U.S. is "almost nonexistent." Funding that area of basic science may lead to better, safer food and more genetic diversity. Not funding it could allow private companies to "lock up" the rights to different plant genomes-something Wyse asserts is not in the public interest. Gonzalez acknowledges that the agency doesn't have the resources to go it alone. Because USDA's R&D funds remain limited, the agency often finds itself reacting to the latest food scare, resulting in a sort of crisis biology, studying emerging food safety threats like Pfisteria and E. coli. That stance presents an obstacle to the kind of long-term planning a plant genome project would entail. The project also would require the cooperation of many other agencies and the long-term commitment of a Congress that may not realize the importance of such an endeavor, says Gonzalez. While Gonzalez has begun cobbling together support for a plant genome project with NSF and NIH, he needs to gain the president's support. "I came away encouraged from the discussions with our other federal partners." He hopes to see a plant genome initiative in the president's 1999 budget proposal, which will be announced February 2. "Hopefully, we can fund it in a couple of different departments, with the USDA playing a lead role." Such an initiative could raise USDA's research profile and improve the agency's reputation-two things Gonzalez acknowledges are key to the USDA's health.

D Dollars

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