AAU urges Congress to provide $700 million to fund the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative in FY23.
Housed within the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, AFRI is the premier competitive grants program for fundamental and applied research, extension, and education in support of our nation’s food and agricultural systems. AFRI has also played an important role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, awarding more than $25 million in competitive grants to support research or extension activities that focus on developing and deploying rapid, reliable, and readily adoptable COVID-19 agricultural strategies across the food and agriculture supply chains.
Competitive AFRI grants have been supporting high-quality science to address some of our nation’s most pressing challenges since 2008. The USDA’s Economic Research Service has determined that every dollar of federal funds invested in agricultural research yields $20 worth of economic impact. Researchers working at universities across the country are using AFRI grants to tackle tough problems and develop innovative solutions. This funding would allow AFRI to:
- Support high-priority research areas, including bioenergy, nutrition and health, global climate change, agricultural technology, rural communities, and food safety.
- Strengthen the institute’s role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic by adding to the $25 million in competitive grants it has already made to help develop agriculture and food responses to the pandemic.
- Continue to attract, retain, and develop the next generation of scientists to address increasing pressures on our natural resources and advance innovations benefiting all Americans.
The USDA’s Economic Research Service has determined that every dollar of federal funds invested in agricultural research yields $20 of economic impact.