James
D. Anderson, Ph.D., President, Friends
of Agricultural Research – Beltsville, Inc. (farbbusiness@yahoo.com)
Fiscal Year 2016
Outside Witness Testimony prepared for U. S. House of Representatives
Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food
and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
March
23, 2015
Mister Chairman and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to present our
statement supporting funding for the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural
Research Service (ARS), and especially for its flagship research facility, The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville,
Maryland. Overall, the facility includes the research
operations of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and the Beltsville
Human Nutrition Research Center. We strongly recommend full fiscal-year 2016
funding support for the research programs of The Henry A. Wallace
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.
Beltsville research has
consistently led the way to agricultural progress for well over a century. Whether
measured as crop yield per acre, milk and meat yield per animal, or average
output per farm worker, the productivity of U.S. agriculture is among the
highest in the world. Economic analyses have found consistent evidence that dollars
invested in agricultural research return high yields per dollar spent. Net social
returns from agricultural research in the United States are estimated to be in
the order of 35 percent or more annually. Those returns include benefits not
only to the farm sector but also to the food industry and consumers in the form
of abundant commodities and food at affordable prices. Still at the threshold of its second century,
The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center stands unequalled
in scientific capability, breadth of agricultural research portfolio, and
concentration of scientific expertise. Its
location and close proximity to other Federal research agencies, the University
of Maryland and other major research and educational institutions provide a rich
opportunity for joint research activities and the leveraging of resources.
We
turn now to selected items within the President’s FY2016 budget request. We
are especially pleased that the President’s budget includes $37.1 million to renovate and modernize of Building 307,
a recommendation that we also included in our testimony for the Fiscal Year
2015 budget.
The Henry A. Wallace
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center has moved successfully in recent years to
consolidate space and reduce costs. Further progress will be vastly aided
by the renovation of Building 307.That valuable
building was vacated some years ago because of deterioration. The proposed funding
will support the design and construction of laboratory space and offices needed
to consolidate research now housed in small, aging, energy-inefficient buildings
on the research campus. Approval of funding for this purpose is highly
recommended.
We
also are very pleased the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget includes
increases in critically important research initiatives, which would lead to
creating new jobs, enhancing American agriculture competitiveness in the global
economy, assuring future food security, protecting crops and animals from
diseases and reducing their vulnerability to climate change, while improving the
economic and environmental sustainability of American agriculture. The scientists of the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville
Agricultural Research Center are recognized world leaders in the scientific
disciplines that are necessary to successfully execute the President’s proposed
research initiatives. Specifically, we
would like to highlight the following initiatives which would enhance the Center’s
research programs.
Translational
Livestock Genetics:
The proposed budget
provides $854,450 of new funding to intensify animal production using modern
high throughput trait analyses and advanced genomic tools. The goal is to improve
genetic selection of cattle and other ruminants through integrating traditional
selection methods with modern DNA marker-based tools. New lines of animals would
have greater growth, enhanced adaptation to extreme environments, better survival,
and greater fertility. Other expected
benefits are improved efficiency of nutrient-use in dairy cattle to lower feed
costs and nutrient losses associated with milk production.
Antimicrobial
Resistance:
The budget provides $1,800,000
of new funding to protect public health by improving our understanding how
antimicrobial resistance occurs in animals and the environment. Among expected
benefits could be novel approaches to boosting animal natural immune systems for
resistance to parasitic infections, gut stabilization against pathogens, or
novel strategies using antimicrobial growth promoters to limit the consequences
of host reactivity to pathogens, and to improve health.
Improving
Agricultural Sustainability:
A total of $900,000 in
new funding is provided for the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural
Research Center to pursue research on benchmark watersheds, experimental
pasture lands and research farms to strengthen the long-term Agro-ecosystems
Research Network and to establish long-term experiments in agricultural
sustainability. Using remote sensing, land surface modeling and ground-based
observations, this research aims among other things to monitor the magnitude of
agricultural drought and its impact on crop condition and yield as well as
characterize the multiple-scale impacts of conservation practices on water
quality.
Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria:
The budget provides $900,000
of new funding to The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center to
investigate protecting public health by preventing antibiotic resistance. This
research aims at developing genetic biotechnologies that include novel
antimicrobials for improved animal health and product safety, also for using
functional genomics to control disease in animals, particularly in
poultry.
Pollinator
Health and Colony Collapse Disorder:
A total of $900,000 in
new funding is requested to develop, in cooperation with
industry, best
management practices for beekeepers. This research uses integrated laboratory
and field approaches that among other things may lead to better diagnosis and
mitigating disease, counteracting negative impact of environmental chemicals,
and improved bee health through better nutrition.
Vertical
Farming:
The budget has $264,546
of new funding to provide new methods and technologies for insect and disease
control related to greenhouse production.
Big
Data:
The budget also requests
$180,000 in new funding for the Center to create a new research project that
will facilitate the creation of scientific networks with shared research
strategies and build a linked data collection through the Long-term
Agro-ecosystems Research Network. Big Data is an emerging scientific field fueled
by advances in data collection, transfer, curation, sharing, storage, and
visualization. Big Data makes it possible to analyze data sets that are too
large for analysis with traditional data processing applications. The benefits can be numerous. In the environmental
sciences, this technology allows scientists to discover new correlations and
trends that may make it possible, for example, to prevent water contamination
or other undesirable environmental changes.
In summation, Mr.
Chairman, we re-confirm that The Henry
A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center has forged a well-earned,
distinguished reputation for successfully translating basic research into
agricultural and human nutrition solutions and advances that benefit all of society.
Beltsville has become an indispensable national leader in the long agricultural
research continuum that allows us to become ever-better stewards of land and
water resources, to introduce new products based on agricultural commodities,
and to make food and agricultural products more affordable, safer, and more
readily abundant for all Americans. Again,
we recommend full funding for research programs of The Henry A. Wallace
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.
Mr. Chairman, this
concludes our statement. Thank you for consideration and support for the
educational, research, and outreach missions of The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville
Agricultural Research Center.
Sincerely,
James
D. Anderson, Ph.D.
President,
Friends of Agricultural Research-Beltsville
