Leahy Provisions In Agriculture Research Bill Expected To Boost UVM and Other VT Colleges; Food Stamps For Some Legal Aliens Also Restored

June 23, 1998

WASHINGTON (June 23) The University of Vermont (UVM) and other Vermont colleges are positioned to reap new science grants under a major new agriculture research plan that was signed into law Tuesday by President Clinton.

The bill allocates $600 million over five years for a new competitive agricultural research program called the "Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food System." During drafting of the bill, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont successfully fought to include provisions that will give small and midsized institutions like those in Vermont a leg up in competing for the $600 million research fund. Much of the new funding will go to designing diseaseresistant farm products that need fewer chemicals and pesticides. These are competitive grants, and USDA must give priority to alternative agriculture: organic and sustainable farming and natural resource management, two priorities for Vermont and UVM. Leahy is a senior member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, which wrote the bill.

"This is a good bill for U.S. agriculture and a good bill for Vermont," said Leahy. "Fewer and fewer farmers must produce more and more food to feed the world. The best way to reconcile those two conflicting trends is to boost our crop yields through vigorous agriculture research. This bill is a groundbreaking commitment to agriculture research that will help yield bigger, better, and environmentally sound harvests."

Lawrence Forcier, Dean of the Division of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Extension at the University of Vermont, said, "These are challenging times for Vermont agriculture. The need for fundamental research to help develop agricultural enterprises which are environmentally sound, economically viable and socially acceptable is critically important and can be enhanced through this legislation."

Also included in the agriculture research bill is another Leahy priority: $642 million to restore food stamp benefits to legal aliens, mostly in the categories of asylees, refugees and their families. Leahy, a longtime advocate of strengthening nutrition programs, joined other key members of Congress in pushing for the food stamp restoration.

"We have done the right and fair thing by restoring food stamps for some legal immigrants," said Leahy. "It is unfortunate that the temper tantrums thrown by some House leaders delayed the timely passage of this bill."

Leahy also included in the bill a Northern Forest research initiative which would authorize funds to help crossstate collaborative research on forestrelated economic, ecological and social changes affecting the region. These provisions follow up the recommendations of the Northern Forest Lands Council.

On the organic foods front, at Leahy's insistence, the agriculture research bill includes provisions intended to help organic farmers. One of Leahy's chief criticisms of the USDA's proposed organic foods rule is that the proposed fee structure did not account for the size of an organic farm. Such a burdensome fee structure could jeopardize the survival of smaller organic farms, he believes. In the research bill, Leahy included language authorizing funds to help pay for a sliding fee structure which would create less of a burden than the currently proposed flat fee structure. Leahy is the chief Senate sponsor of a law enacted in 1990 that established a process to establish strong, uniform standards for organic products.