To Members of the NASULGC System:
- Board on Agriculture Assembly
- Budget and Advocacy Committee
- Council on Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching

Beginning last fall and continuing until this week, members of the BAA, the BAC and CARET worked diligently to make the case for inclusion of Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) funding in any economic stimulus legislation.

When legislation was finally drafted in the last few weeks, the House’s version of the bill had no AFRI funding. The Senate Appropriations Committee included $100 million for AFRI. But, in an effort led by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and others to reduce the overall size of the bill by $100 billion, AFRI was reduced to $50 million on the Senate floor. Unfortunately, the conference committee never had the opportunity to consider the merits of AFRI. As part of conference negotiations, the Obama Administration proposed a list of items for consideration. With few exceptions, this list was adopted as is by the conferees. The Administration proposed nothing for AFRI, which was agreed to by the conferees.

Despite this setback, your efforts contributed greatly to increasing the awareness in Congress of the benefits of AFRI and other meritorious research, teaching, and extension programs funded through the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service. We will work to build on that progress, and it gives us momentum we haven't had in the past, going into the upcoming appropriations cycle.

The Cornerstone Team