Plan to relocate USDA research agencies opposed by food safety groups

Members of the Safe Food Coalition are asking Congress to stop the efforts to diminish the impact of key research agencies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including moving two of them out of Washington, D.C.

The USDA has an announcement of a list of finalists for the proposed relocation of the Economic Research Service or ERS and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture or NIFA.

The Trump administration has repeatedly proposed dramatic budget cuts to research budgets for the two USDA research agencies. The president’s 2020 budget eliminates the entire ERS budget for food safety research, which was $2.1 million. Congress, however, has maintained its funding for ERS’ agricultural and food safety research, and it continues to support NIFA’s research agenda.

“When Congress stood up to these budget proposals, the administration came out with an alternative plan to diminish objective research and policy analysis by moving NIFA and ERS outside of the Washington, D.C. area.” said Pat Buck, executive director of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention. “This is an attempt to weaken these institutions, and Congress should use its power to block the proposal.”

UDSA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the plan to move the two research agencies in the summer of 2018. USDA hasn’t conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the moves, Buck said, and, since the plan was announced, veteran researchers, including economists, have left in high numbers.

Some current and former ERS economists said they view the relocation as a form of punishment for the agency’s findings that don’t always align with Republican arguments on issues from taxes and trade to farm subsidies, food stamps, and the environment, according to an article in Politico.

Food advocates are concerned because the agencies play an important role in providing information for the development of food safety policies. ERS researchers study how consumers react to food safety outbreaks and recalls, and examine how private markets and government regulation connect to create the U.S. safety net for meat and poultry products. NIFA is a leading funder of research aimed at advancing agriculture-related sciences, finding innovative solutions to local and global agricultural issues, and ensuring the long-term viability of agriculture.

“Economic policy analysis and research on the prevention of foodborne illness is vital to protecting consumers from foodborne illness,” said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America. “Both ERS and NIFA play a critical role in the translation of food safety science into policy and practice, and Congress should not allow the Trump Administration to devalue the role of these agencies through its ill-conceived relocation scheme.”

“There is no credible justification for moving these two agencies,” said Tony Corbo, senior lobbyist at Food & Water Watch. “Members of Congress have even pointed out that there is space at existing USDA facilities in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area that could accommodate the agencies.”

“Worldwide, USDA’s Economic Research Service is highly regarded and the research projects conducted by NIFA have greatly improved farming technologies and disease preventive measures both locally and globally,” said Buck.

In addition to proposed budget cuts, Perdue has moved the ERS under the Office of the Chief Economist, which means it has lost its independent status in the agriculture department.

Research by the ERS that contradicts with Trump administration policies, according to The New Food Economy website, includes:

Participation and federal spending on SNAP, formerly the food stamp program, has dropped every year since 2013.

Last year, those rates fell by 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively. USDA leaders and President Trump have said that SNAP use is out of control, and as an anti-poverty program it’s failing because the number of Americans who rely on it is higher than ever.

Increased trade benefits American farmers.

An ERS analysis found that net farm income was on an upward trend from 2000, until hitting a peak in 2013. Meanwhile, farmers’ overall income, which includes off-farm earnings, has actually been rising since 2016. The Trump administration contends that “our farmers have been hurt for 15 and 20 years” – about as long as U.S farmers have been selling soybeans to China.

Greater incidences of extreme weather and increased variability wreak havoc on farm production.

By 2020, ERS predicts, production of corn, oats, and soybeans will have decreased by more than 8 percent due to changes in precipitation and added concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The higher crop prices that will result won’t offset lost revenue from lower yields, the agency found. ERS has also found that heat stress from climate change could lower dairy productivity. The Trump administration has been hostile toward science and research that has proven climate change is real and affecting the nation’s weather patterns

Water pollution cleanup has been costly.

Over the last two decades, the ERS found the USDA has spent $4.2 billion restoring and protecting wetlands, with the costs of removing nitrogen running up to $6,100 an acre in the Corn Belt. The Trump administration has attempted to roll back the Clean Water Act and loosen restrictions on pollutants, such as nitrogen, that enter waterways through soil runoff. 

Crop insurance, a program that allows grain farmers to receive government payments if their crop value falls below a set price, while possibly a useful safety net, doesn’t do much for growth.

The president has promised farmers he’d make crop insurance work for them, and told the chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, to make it better and make it great.