Funding from USDA for research on greenhouse-gas mitigation in agriculture will increase more than 10-fold, according to an announcement last month from USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The new increase in USDA funding for climate-change research in agriculture comes as the U.S. joins 20 other countries across the globe to announce the formation of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA), an international research collaborative to combat climate change.
Over the next four years, USDA will expand ag climate-change-mitigation research by $90 million and contribute this research to the GRA. The increase will raise USDA's ag climate-change-mitigation research portfolio to more than $130 million over the next four years, up from a base level of funding of just over $10 million in fiscal year 2009.
USDA's enhanced commitment is part of a larger increase on climate-change research at the department. Overall, USDA announces that it expects to invest more than $320 million in the next four years on climate change mitigation and adaptation research for agriculture.
For more information on the USDA GRA initiative, see www.usda.gov and go to “Press Room.” Search for Release No. 0615.09 from Dec. 16, 2009.