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sory board. We're here to tell you what works and what doesn't, 

 from a customer point of view. 



I've submitted my full testimony in writing this morning for the 

 record, and what I'm going to do now is give you a brief summary 

 of that testimony. 



Mr. Stenholm. Without objection, your prepared statement will 

 appesir in the record. 



Mr. Kloek. I'm here today to talk about facilities allocation and 

 upkeep — specifically, how do we reform the system of federally 

 funded agricultural research facilities in order to meet scientific 

 priorities, close outdated and rundown facilities, and establish an 

 effective planning process for future needs? In brief, the UAB be- 

 lieves that to accomplish these objectives, we must develop an over- 

 all cohesive national strategy for agricultural research and a re- 

 view mechanism to determine the extent our existing and proposed 

 facilities will meet that strategy's long-range goals and objectives. 



Now, why have we concluded that? The existing system of facili- 

 ties is, in many cases, outdated, understsiffed, and in disrepair. 

 Many facilities remain in operation despite evidence that they 

 could be closed or consoKdated. I'd like to highlight some specific 

 facility problems which the UAB has identified. 



First, many of these faciUties are in need of maintenance. In 

 1990 the Agricultural Research Service, or the ARS, made an esti- 

 mate of what it would take to bring all of their facilities into a good 

 state of repair and to take some of the older ones and get them into 

 condition to meet modem health and safety codes. They concluded 

 that for every dollar they were currently spending on research, 

 they would have to spend an additional 76 cents to maintain their 

 facilities. That's a staggering figure. 



Second, buildings are scientifically staffed at less than full capac- 

 ity. ARS has about 1,500 square feet of facihty space for every em- 

 ployee they have. Now, you've got to be a Httle careful with that 

 statistic, because that includes greenhouses and auditoriums and 

 things that are pretty consumptive of space, but even given that, 

 there's really very little doubt that many of these facilities are 

 luiderstaffed with scientists. 



The support-staff-to-scientist ratio is too high in many of these 

 facilities. It takes a certain number of support staff to operate a 

 building regardless of how many scientists are in it, and so because 

 of this iinderpopulation of scientists in these facilities, that often- 

 times will drive the support-staff-to-scientist ratio well above the 

 commonly accepted 2:1 ratio that people feel would be appropriate. 



Many of these facilities are remote from scientific centers. In 

 order to effectively carry out research, scientists need to interact 

 with each other, and a lot of these facilities are too small to sup- 

 port a critical mass of scientists, and the5r're too far away from 

 other centers to allow effective collaboration. 



There's no national agricultural science facility plan, and so what 

 we tend to see is a rush to hot issues. If, in a given year, bio- 

 technology is a hot issue, then what you see is a whole rash of fa- 

 cilities plans to do biotechnology, and this oftentimes will ignore 

 very present needs in other, less-glitzy disciplines. 



Finally, the system of allocation is pohticized. The majority of the 

 buildings that get built with Federal funds actually go to the State 



