USDANEWS VOLUME 57 NO.2 -MARCH 1998

During his State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton earned the most applause when he called for the largest funding increase in history for biomedical research. He made a powerful case by talking about the possibility of cures for cancer and other diseases. Americans cheered him on because each of us understands the importance of this research to the quality of our lives.

From public health breakthroughs to advances that allow us to increase farm yields while protecting the environment, agricultural research has made its own share of impressive contributions.

In 1942, someone brought a rotten cantaloupe into a USDA researcher in Peoria, Illinois, who was an 'expert on the nutrition of molds.’ Today, that expert’s portrait hangs alongside Thomas Edison’s and the Wright Brothers’ in the Inventors Hall of Fame. Using that moldy fruit, Dr. Edward Moyer unlocked the mystery of how to mass produce penicillin--giving the world a cure for common infections just in time to save many allied soldiers wounded on D-Day.

Since World War II, public investment in agricultural research has been responsible for 75% of all growth in U.S. agricultural productivity. This finding from a recent USDA report, 'U.S. Agricultural Productivity: An Economywide Perspective,’ proves once and for all that America’s investments in agricultural research are critical to our farmers’ and ranchers’ success.

Unfortunately, the report also notes that funding for agricultural research has stagnated since the 1970s, declining in real terms. This slow leak does not bode well for agriculture’s future.

With a world growing in population and incomes, strong productivity gains remain vital, and increasingly we depend on scientific breakthroughs to deliver them.

Yet most folks haven’t the faintest clue that such scientific work exists at USDA or has anything to do with agricultural research.

Those of us who do know this well-kept secret ought to share it with our fellow Americans, so everyone understands the importance of this work. Our nation needs to invest more in agricultural research, but we'll only be able to do so when we get that applause from the American people. ¤

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