By Cat Holmes
University of Georgia

Two University of Georgia deans and others told of critical
funding needs for the state’s research and extension programs
in a congressional subcommittee hearing Monday in Athens, Ga.

The UGA deans testified on behalf of the Georgia Agricultural
Experiment Stations and Cooperative Extension Service before the
U.S. House of Representatives agriculture subcommittee on
conservation, credit, rural development and research. U.S. Rep.
Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman, and Rep. Max Burns (R-Ga.)
represented the subcommittee.

Gale Buchanan of the College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences and Sharon Nickols of the College of Family and
Consumer
Science said extension and research programs are vital to the
health of the U.S. economy and its citizens. Federal funding,
they said, is critical to maintain them.

‘Taken for granted’

“America’s integrated agricultural research, extension and
education system is the finest in the world,” Buchanan said.
“(These) programs have been highly successful but are,
unfortunately, taken for granted.”

“Taken for granted” has meant losses to reduced and stagnant
federal funding and rising inflation, he said. Over the past
decade, land-grant universities have lost more than half of the
federal buying power that supports these programs.

Nickols provided a graphic illustration.

“Of the 242 counties designated as ‘persistently poor’ in a
recent study of 11 Southern states,” she said, “91 are in
Georgia.” But the number of FCS extension agents to serve 8
million Georgians in 159 counties is down to 45.

FCS extension agents focus on teaching the most at-risk families
about food safety, nutrition and health, child and family
development, financial security and housing.

Recommendations

Buchanan recommended four ways to support extension and research
programs.

• Increase competitive grant programs to address critical
  nutrition, food security and environmental needs.





• Restore funds cut from the Expanded Food and Nutrition
  Education Program (EFNEP) and increase funding.





• Increase funding for institutions that serve
  minorities.





• Restore the $20.6 million in Cooperative State Research,
  Education and Extension Services programs cut last year.

The subcommittee heard also heard testimony from Mel Garber,
CAES
associate dean for extension; Clifton Baile, distinguished
professor and Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar in
agricultural biotechnology; Donald Reeves, supervisory research
agronomist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural
Research Service; and David Swayne, director of the USDA-ARS
Southeast Poultry Research Lab.

(Cat Holmes is a news editor with the University of Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)