WASHINGTON – The Science Coalition (TSC) today issued the following statement after the House Committee on Appropriations approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Agriculture-FDA spending measure that includes funding for research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA):
“Investment in agricultural sciences is essential to maintaining our nation’s food supply, protecting rural communities, and helping solve some of our greatest challenges, such as climate change and food insecurity. While this measure includes a small increase, it falls short in addressing the needs of researchers who rely on funding from USDA and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) for long-term projects that benefit society and enhance a $1.1 trillion sector of our economy,” said TSC President John Latini. “As noted by the National Academies, the return on investment for public agricultural research is estimated to be $32.1 per dollar. Additionally, federally funded research leads to hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wages, taxes, and increases to the national GDP, all while positioning the United States as a global leader in innovation, as described in TSC’s Sparking Economic Growth report. We urge lawmakers to provide consistent, robust investment across all research agencies, including USDA-NIFA.”
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About the Science Coalition
Established in 1994, The Science Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of more than 50 of the nation’s leading public and private research universities. It is dedicated to sustaining the federal government’s investment in basic scientific research as a means to stimulate the economy, spur innovation, and drive America’s global competitiveness.