108 



Questions and Answers 



Re 



Testimony on 



Setting Priorities for Agricultural Research Facilities 



June 17, 1993 



Answers Prepared by 



C. Peter Magrath, President 



National Association of State Universities 



and Land Grant Colleges 



1. Who or what is responsible for our current facility dilemma? 



As presented in my testimony, many of the facilities for conducting agricultural research in 

 our system were built more than thirty years ago and must either be replaced or refurbished 

 to provide the capability to conduct modem agricultural research. Similarly, cutting edge 

 research in agriculture, as in other areas of science, requires a new level of sophistication 

 with equipment that must often be replaced as often as every five years to maintain the state 

 of the art. Most state budgets for agriculmral research have undergone substantial 

 reductions, a situation which has prevailed in some states for many years aod has become 

 much more wide spread in the last three years. Responsibility for the "dilemma" must be 

 shared by many. Both federal and state funds have been inadequate to maintain ideal 

 programs of repair and replacement in many institutions, resulting in a bow-waving of 

 deferred maintenance that compounds with time. Similarly, programs to replace aging 

 facilities have been deferred and the need to provide new facilities for a more sophisticated 

 kind of agricultural science has not been adequately met. One overriding problem is that 

 there has not been in place a program to provide funds for agricultural research equipment 

 and ^dhties that provided a mechanism for the federal govenmient to provide its share of 

 support for this part of the total program. 



2. Why is i* ir.'.port.z.r.t to balance fariUty fcndirg with the National Research Initiative 

 Competitive Grants Program? 



The growth of the NRI should not be the sole criterion for determining the need for new 

 equipment and facilities for agricultural research, nor should it be the only program in 

 USDA that relates to the facilities issue. The rationale is simply that, if the federal 

 government intends to sponsor an increased scope of effort in agricultural research, on 

 balance, it should share in funding the needed expansion of facilities in which this research 

 will be done. This connection was first proposed when it was the reconunendation of the 



