Huffman, Wallace E.; Norton, G.; Traxler, G.; Frisvold, G.; Foltz, J.

Choices Vol. 21 no. 4 (Fourth Quarter 2006): 269-274.

The Bush administration has proposed major changes in federal funding mechanisms for state agricultural experiment station research. The objective of this article is to examine winners and losers from proposed changes in the proportions of federal-formula versus competitive grant funding of public agricultural research at the state level. The outcome is important because of differences in who sets the research agenda, the types of research discoveries that would be favored, distributional effects it would have across the states and regions, the payoff to society, and sustainability of future funding. A case is made for balanced increases in federal formula and competitive grant funding for agricultural research.