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Calls Needed to Help Fund
Pasture-Based Animal Research
October 20, 2005
Federal funding for research on pasture-based animal production systems
is included in the recently approved Senate Agriculture Appropriations
Bill for FY2006, but is not included in the House version. We need your
immediate action to make sure funding for these important programs is
approved during the conference process that is currently underway to
resolve differences. These funding requests were made to Congress by
the
private-sector members of the Northeast Pasture Research and Extension
Consortium that is described below.
Please contact your Congressional members (especially House members
-
U.S. Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121) and ask for their support
during reconciliation to:
• Restore $500,000 for "pasture systems and watershed management"
research to evaluate sustainable forage-livestock systems and nutrient
management to protect water quality carried out at the USDA-Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research
Unit, University Park, PA, that originated as a Congressional add-on
in FY2001. This is a regional laboratory that conducts grazing research
throughout the Northeast Region.
• Restore $1,894,000 for "Pasture-Based Beef Systems for
Appalachia," the forage-livestock systems research program being
carried out by the USDA-ARS Appalachian Farming Systems Research Center
in Beaver, WV,in
cooperation with West Virginia University, Virginia Tech, and the University
of Georgia. This project originally was funded as a Congressional add-on
in FY2000. It addresses production and marketing over the entire production
cycle of beef from calf to meat on the plate.
• Provide $400,000 for the proposed dairy grazing research initiative
at the USDA-ARS North Appalachian Experimental Watershed facility, Coshocton,
Ohio.
NEED FOR A NEW STRATEGY: The future of rural communities in the Northeast
depends upon solving the problems that limit the successes of
existing farmers and the opportunities for new producers. A stakeholder-driven
research strategy is needed that focuses on economic sustainability,
environmental stewardship, and plant and animal systems that yield healthy
pasture-based animal products and save fossil fuels. Northeast farmers
have led the way in developing innovative forage- and pasture-based
systems that preserve open space in an urbanizing landscape. They need
more objective and defensible information on grazing systems adapted
to their unique growing conditions, and results that help graziers,
agricultural lenders, and policy leaders make better informed decisions.
This new strategy must support these innovators on dairy and livestock
farms of all sizes from New England to the mid-Atlantic Region.
SPONSOR: The Northeast Pasture Research and Extension Consortium is
a
private-public partnership of producers, agri-business suppliers, and
NGOs from the Northeast Region (13 states, New England to Maryland,
West
Virginia, and Ohio), and representatives from land-grant universities,
USDA-ARS, and USDA-NRCS who conduct grazing research and provide technology
transfer. The stakeholder members of the Consortium recommend the priorities
for research and educational programs. Emphasis is on dairy, beef, sheep,
goat, and horse enterprises across the Northeast Region.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Please contact Angus Johnson, dairy roducer
and Private-Sector Co-Chair, Northeast Pasture Consortium, 603.325.5300,
Dublin, NH; Dick Warner, beef producer and Chair, Consortium Stakeholder
Action Committee, dickwarner1@juno.com, Cincinnatus, NY; or Chuck Krueger,
Executive Director, Northeast Pasture Consortium,
nepastureconsortium@adelphia.net, State College, PA.
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