WASHINGTON - The U.S. Agriculture Department will focus its sprawling web of research to make a bigger impact on some of the biggest problems facing the world, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Thursday.
Top USDA officials are looking at how best to group the department's research around the top priorities of global food security, bioenergy, climate change, food safety and childhood obesity, Vilsack said.
"It is a strategic, laser-like focus on research that we believe will make an impact -- not necessarily on every possible, conceivable notion," Vilsack told reporters.
The USDA plans to work more closely with other federal science agencies to avoid duplication, Vilsack said.
On biofuels, for example, Vilsack said USDA should leave research on fuel efficiency to the Energy Department, and focus instead on growing new feedstocks for alternative fuels.
"You know how many projects we have in that area? Zero," Vilsack said.
The USDA's research budget for fiscal 2010 includes $1.18 billion on research done by its team of 2,200 scientists, as well as $788 million for the new "National Institute of Food and Agriculture" initiative, which gives grants to external research bodies such as universities.
Congress provides direction on how the USDA spends a large portion of its research dollars. About 15 percent of the new initiative's budget is "earmarked" for congressionally directed spending.
The USDA will work with Congress and a broad group of stakeholders on its new focus, said Rajiv Shah, the department's chief scientist, who spoke about the priorities at a Capitol Hill hearing last week.
"Some earmarks may be important goal-oriented research ... and some may be things that we consider maybe off-strategy," Shah said.
The department will continue to focus first on helping U.S. farmers, said Roger Beachy, the biologist known for his work on genetically modified crops tapped to lead the new initiative.
"I get asked this a lot by the Missouri soybean growers and the National Corn Growers: 'What's next?' And the reality is, we don't have a long-term plan," Beachy said.
"I suspect we need a longer-term plan for the economics of agriculture and how to integrate the societal needs and industrial needs in a new way," Beachy said.
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