U of M grain disease research threatened by U.S. ag policies

The global impact of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cereal Disease Laboratory on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus may not be instantly recognizable, but in the midst of a global food crisis its mission is critical. “We protect small grain cereal crops from the most devastating diseases,” the Cereal Disease Laboratory Web site explains.

The lab is one of three in the world. Current studies are being conducted on a new type of wheat rust that is rapidly spreading across Africa to the Middle East. The Bush administration is seeking to cut more than $300,000 in funding for the research.

The move is not only unpopular among humanitarians concerned about mass famine, but also in the agricultural community here in America, which relies on the CDL to help keep crops healthy. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., has said she’ll fight for the lab as she has in years past.

Continued: Click “Read more”The continued push for cuts in the funding of research on plant diseases contrasts with the administration’s foot-and-mouth research policy. President Bush advocates for a foot-and-mouth disease research facility to be constructed inside the United States, but congressional investigators from the General Accounting Office found that safety can not be ensured against the extremely contagious and often deadly viral disease that can affect cattle, pigs and other hoofed mammals.

Recent outbreaks in the United Kingdom, Taiwan and China have had world beef markets on high alert for the last decade, but the United States hasn’t had a foot-and-mouth outbreak since 1929. A new outbreak would be a blow to the U.S. economy and devastating to small farms and a cattle industry already struggling against bovine tuberculosis. Again the administration’s position puts the president at odds with farmers and leaves him besieged by congressional Democrats.