32 



way in your report is because we've got a real schism developing 

 in our country between the traditions of ag research which we have 

 had, God knows, since land-grant colleges stsirted and what is hap- 

 pening out there in the day-to-day realities of agribusiness and 

 that whole area. 



I look at yoiir statements, and I can't disagree with you that we 

 ought to have a national facilities plan, but I've got to tell you, if 

 a national faciUties plan means we're going to spend money just on 

 land-grant colleges and giving them new, fancy institutions and 

 we're not going to let anybody else iuto this ag research area, I 

 think I'm opposed to that. 



I understand your concern about competitive grants, but part of 

 the reason, obviously, the Congress has gone to competitive grants 

 is because we're increasingly uncomfortable with the results we're 

 getting from formula grants. 



I certainly agree, Dr. Savage, with your statement on earmark- 

 ing, and yet, while earmarking might be half political, I've got to 

 tell you I think the other half is congressional ftnstration that we 

 don't have any results for all the money we spent. 



So there seems to be, I think, a disconnect at least between you 

 in the profession and some of us on this panel. I know there's a 

 bigger disconnect, frankly, between you and academic research and 

 those in agriculture in this country. 



I've raised a lot of questions, and, frankly, I hope some of them 

 were at least challenging, if not disturbing, but I'm not sure where 

 all this leads us. Do you have any advice for us? 



Ms. Offutt. As I said, the Board on Agriculture has been par- 

 ticularly concerned with this competitive grants area, which has 

 turned out, if you look at the ag research budget, to be the most 

 dynamic aspect in terms of a few gains in funding levels at the 

 margin. What that modest success has apparently engendered is a 

 focus of this controversy about what basic science is supposed to do 

 and what farmers or groups of farmers might want on the question 

 of how you allocate research doUars. 



The board has discussed the idea of perhaps trying to get this 

 dialog out in the open so we can try and understand the kinds of 

 issues that you've raised. It's not obvious to everyone, and there's 

 no reason it should be, how molecular genetics is going to help 

 water quality, but the linkage is there in that program. 



The board has spent some time talking to the chief scientists at 

 the competitive grants program and also to the people who have 

 been here to the Hill about how we might try and better define 

 what concerns are and how the mechanisms really address them. 



Mr. GUNDERSON. Any comments from the other two? 



Mr. Kloek. I guess I'd make a comment on a small part of that 

 in terms of your disconnect. You commented on the perception of 

 a disconnect between the applied research and the basic research. 

 Close to half of the people who serve on the board are actively en- 

 gaged in farming, either as their sole source of support or a signifi- 

 cant part of it. In talking to those UAB members, I would conclude 

 they don't see that disconnect. For example, we have a dairy farm- 

 er and he understands what the bST issues are, what it is and 

 where it comes from. Other UAB farmers understand transgenic 



