DeLauro Honored with "Champion" Award for Support Of Agricultural Research and Land-Grant Universities
DeLauro Honored with "Champion" Award for Support Of Agricultural Research and Land-Grant Universities
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) was today honored with the Champion Award for 2006 by the Council for Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching (CARET) for her strong support of agricultural research and land-grant universities. DeLauro is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee.
"Land Grant Universities sustain not only our rural communities, our local economies and the natural resources on which America relies, but perhaps most importantly, the values of the American Heartland - values which in turn have sustained America since its inception," said DeLauro. "In that sense, our Land Grant university system reflects the best aspects of the Federal government and the services it can provide people - offering research and extension programs that have affected people's lives at the most basic and essential levels. Whether it is literacy or the 4-H programs or food safety, its extension programs provide people opportunities to lift themselves up in all aspects of their lives. They make opportunity real - and they do so on a county-by-county basis."
DeLauro's home state of Connecticut is at the cutting edge of agricultural research at the University of Connecticut, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Cooperative Extension System, the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station, Yale University, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Connecticut's Land Grant institution is the University of Connecticut. DeLauro's district is also home to the first agricultural experiment station in the country. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station has done cutting edge work in the last centuryfrom work that led to the discovery of vitamin A, to new types of pest control, to groundbreaking discoveries in the area of corn hybridization.
"I am concerned that the budget proposed by the president would make the job you are doing to make that possible more difficult. I was pleased to see increased funding for Agrosecurity and the National Research Initiative, which impacts issues such as emerging diseases and pests, biosecurity, farm management, air quality, and food and nutritional improvements.
"But the proposal to redirect 55 percent of Hatch formula funds and 60 percent of McIntire-Stennis funds to nationally competitively awarded multi-state projects worries me greatly. While competition in itself is hardly a bad thing, I have serious concerns that this may introduce instability into our Land Grant and forestry funding sources, compromising our Land Grant system's ability to provide the services Congress still requires them to deliver. And at a time when we are facing a potentially serious outbreak of avian flu and BSE, the budget eliminates funding for the Animal Health and Disease program, which helps us respond to these crises by providing base funding to more than 65 institutions across the United States.
"We need to find new ways to support research, education, and extension over the long-term. And it starts with providing them with physical and human infrastructure - and it starts with providing the resources."
CARET is a national grassroots organization that was created in 1982 by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) Division of Agriculture. The organization offers testimony in support of land-grant agricultural programs of research, extension, and teaching to Congressional committees and Executive Branch agencies. It also works with national agricultural organizations.
http://www.house.gov/delauro/press/2006/February/champion_award_2_27_06.html