Food & Water Watch - Introduction lyrics

Public investment in agricultural research through land-grant universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has provided significant benefits to U.S. farmers, consumers and food companies. This research has produced new seeds, plant varieties, farming practices, conservation methods and food processing techniques — all of which were broadly shared with the public. The federal government created land-grant universities in 1862 by deeding tracts of land to every state to pursue agricultural research to improve American agriculture, “elevating it to that higher level where it may fearlessly invoke comparison with the most advanced standards of the world.” Public investments in agricultural research propelled decades of agricultural improvements. Yields and production increased dramatically, and every public dollar invested in agricultural research returned an average of $10 in benefits. Public research brought about the domestication of the blueberry,early varieties of high-yield hybrid corn and widely used tools to combat soil erosion. Well into the 20th century, seedbreeding programs at land-grant universities were responsible for developing almost all new seed and plant varieties. The land-grant university system includes some of the largest state universities — including the University of California system, Pennsylvania State University and Texas Agricultural & Mechanical University. With 109 locations and a presence in every state and territory, the land-grant university system has both the capacity and the mission to respond to the research needs of all sectors of agriculture. The USDA distributes the scientific breakthroughs from these land-grant universities through its extension system, in which county extension agents share research with farmers and communicate farmers' research needs with the universities. But over recent decades, the public mission of landgrant universities has been compromised. As public funding has stalled, land-grant universities have turned to agribusiness to fill the void, dramatically shifting the direction of public agricultural research. Land-grant universities today depend on industry to underwrite research grants, endow faculty chairs, sponsor departments and finance the construction of new buildings. By the early 1990s, industry funding surpa**ed USDA funding of agricultural research at land-grant universities. In 2009, corporations, trade a**ociations and foundations invested $822 million in agricultural research at land-grant schools, compared to only $645 million from the USDA (in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars). Although corporate donations provide needed funding for land-grant schools, they can also create potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest for land-grant research programs. Some research programs nakedly advance the aims of donors, like the University of California department of nutrition's research into the benefits of eating chocolate, funded by the candy manufacturer Mars. Similarly, industry-funded research is more likely to deliver favorable research results for donors than independent research. Despite this demonstrated bias, the financial relationships between researchers and their industry sponsors are not always revealed in published scientific papers. Industry-sponsored research effectively converts land-grant universities into corporate contractors, diverting their research capacity away from projects that serve the public good. Agribusinesses use sponsored land-grant research — with its imprimatur of academic objectivity — to convince regulators of the safety or efficacy of new crops or food products. Growing dependence on corporate funding discourages academics from pursuing research that might challenge the business practices of their funders or that irks money-hungry administrators who grant tenure to professors. A 2005 University of Wisconsin survey of land-grant agricultural scientists found that the amount of grant and contract money that professors generate has a significant influence over their tenure and salaries. This chilling effect discourages academic research on environmental, public health and food safety risks related to industrial agriculture — and explains the sparse research on alternatives to the dominant agriculture model. Conflict-of-interest policies at public universities and academic journals have failed to address the biasing effect of industry money on science. Agricultural research priorities can be refocused through the Farm Bill, which reauthorizes farm policy every five years, including providing much of USDA's research funding to land-grant universities. The next Farm Bill's Research Title should replenish USDA's research coffers and direct funding toward research that promotes the public good, not private interests. This report details the trends in agricultural research and the corrosive impact of industry funding on public research. Food & Water Watch an*lyzed USDA databases and reports, grant records from land-grant universities, academic journal articles, court filings, corporate press releases, media coverage and other public documents.