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Cornerstone Report from Washington Vol. 8, No. 1 – February 1, 2010
NIFA Programs Spared Cuts in President’s FY 2011 Budget Request
To Members of the APLU System: - Board on Agriculture Assembly - Budget and Advocacy Committee - Council on Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching - Council on Governmental Affairs (Aggies)
The President’s FY 2011 Budget Request was released today. The following table presents the proposed funding levels for the Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). As you will note, the President proposes to leave the top-line number for the agency (essentially) unchanged at $1.358 Billion. There is large increase proposed for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to be paid by corresponding decreases in congressionally designated projects (earmarks) and some additional line items.
Preliminary Analysis As traditionally happens, the President’s Budget Request proposed elimination of most of the special research grants and the research and extension federal administration grants (earmarks). Also, as we have seen in most recent fiscal years, the Budget proposed to move seven of the funding lines in the Integrated Activities portion of the NIFA budget to the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). AFRI would receive a $166.363 million increase, rising from the FY 2010 enacted level of $262.482 million to $428.845 million.
Several NIFA line items would see modest increases (e.g. the 1994 Institutions' Extension Services) over their FY 2010 enacted levels and several line items are proposed for elimination. (Again, this is common in the President’s Budget Request.) There are three significant additions: (1) the Secondary/2-year Post Secondary grant program under the Research and Education heading would receive a $2.500 million increase to add an “Agriculture in the K-12 classroom” element; (2) there is a new (proposed) $10.000 million “Sustainable Agriculture Federal-State Matching Grants” program under the Integrated Activities heading; and (3) Institution Challenge Grants would receive a $2.500 million increase.
Finally, the Budget Request does not touch funding for the four NIFA mandatory programs established in the 2008 Farm Bill.
Links NIFA Section from USDA Budget Appendix: www.land-grant.org/docs/FY2011/NIFA_Budget.pdf Spreadsheet of All NIFA Lines: www.land-grant.org/docs/FY2011/President.xls
The Cornerstone Team |
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