“Farmdoc has been of great value to me both personally and professionally. I use it regularly to check markets, weather and find the latest information on a wide array of current issues affecting agriculture,” said Alan Puzey, C-FAR board member, farmer and insurance agent. “As a rural insurance agent, farmdoc provides one of the best explanations of the Federal Crop Products available to my clients. I refer them to the site on a regular basis.”

C-FAR: A Historical Perspective

The Council on Food and Agricultural Research (C-FAR) was organized to address two major issues.

Illinois leaders perceive a need for improved communication between the people who conduct food and agricultural research in public universities and the diverse constituencies they serve. Those constituencies want assurance that a significant portion of the research will be organized around high priority practical objectives rather than purely academic issues. Also, participants in the Illinois food and agricultural sector are concerned about the relatively low level of State funding for university food and agricultural research programs.

Illinois citizens have a big stake in the success of the state's food and agricultural enterprise.

The food and agricultural sector is faced with expanding global markets; increasingly sophisticated and aggressive competition; unprecedented rates of technological, political, economic, and social change; and increasing public concern about such crosscutting issues as food safety, environmental quality, and natural resource conservation. Illinois, blessed with excellent agricultural land and favorable climate, usually ranks among the top five states in cash sales of crops and livestock. It headquarters more large food and agribusiness concerns than any other state. The gross revenues of those firms exceed $100 billion annually. One of every five workers in Illinois is employed in the food and agricultural sector.

In the mid-1980s, an ad hoc group of agricultural leaders in the state sought increased state funding for "adaptive" agricultural research, which generates information on which agriculturalists can act directly. The leaders were frustrated by failed attempts to increase university funding of such programs through new program initiatives and similar mechanisms by which Illinois universities address specific needs. Their efforts resulted in Public Act 86-253, popularly known as Senate Bill 63, which authorized the Department of Agriculture to expend funds for adaptive research. Because of the state's financial difficulties, there was no accompanying appropriation.

During the early 1990s, internal budget priority committees at the University of Illinois targeted the College of Agriculture for disproportionately large cuts relative to almost all other colleges. The money freed by these cuts was to be reallocated to other programs. Later, campus level administrators decided not to cut the agricultural extension function disproportionately, but implemented the planned cuts of research and teaching budgets.

The plans for downsizing the College of Agriculture were widely publicized and the state's agricultural leadership became aware of them. Groups of those leaders visited with university officials on at least two occasions to express their concerns and offer help in resolving the situation. They argued that, given the problems facing the food and agricultural sector, it was not an appropriate time to downsize food and agricultural research. Such a move, they said, would not improve the financial health of either the State or its institutions.

College of Agriculture administrators, in trying to estimate the potential impact of the University's downsizing effort, looked at long term trends. Their studies of Current Research Information System data revealed that Illinois had slipped steadily from 13th among the states in state support for food and agricultural research in 1972 to 27th in 1991. Further downsizing would obviously exacerbate the situation and reduce even further Illinois' institutional capacity to meet its food and agricultural challenges.

When the College of Agriculture Alumni Association learned of the trends, they adopted a resolution (March 1993) calling for increased state funding for food and agricultural research. Their goal was for the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Illinois College of Agriculture, to rank among the top 10 state experiment stations in state funding. As a first step toward achieving this goal, the Alumni Association launched an effort to organize C-FAR as a broad-based coalition of nonprofit agricultural organizations. Considerable effort was devoted to conflict resolution within this group, including a productive conflict resolution workshop supported by the Kellogg Foundation.

Enabled by a grant of $100,000 from the Kellogg Foundation, C-FAR started to develop a process enabling its member organizations to work with each other and with the universities to: 1) identify and prioritize appropriate practical objectives for food and agricultural research, 2) review programs and evaluate progress toward achieving the objectives, 3) assure that university research is coordinated with private sector and other research and development efforts, and 4) provide useful advice, from a user's perspective, on practical aspects of the research. The effort to develop and refine this system will continue for the foreseeable future.

The vision shared by C-FAR members with regard to public participation in decisions affecting food and agricultural research is extremely important. In spite of widely differing views about appropriate directions for the food and agricultural sector, the 60
C-FAR member organizations clearly agree on the need for sound, research-based information to support debates, discussions, and decisions on both strategic and tactical issues within the sector. They also agree that the necessary level of communication will not happen by chance, but will require continuing effort and commitment within the entire food and agricultural community.

They often could not see immediate practical benefits from such programs and, frankly, were sometimes shortsighted in their evaluation. C-FAR leaders, however, are very sophisticated in their analysis of research needs. They realize the importance and potential power of basic research. They believe that some basic research, even in Colleges of Agriculture, should be unconstrained by immediate practical goals.

These leaders, however, believe strongly that most basic research in support of the food and agricultural sector should be conducted in the context of well-coordinated research and development projects in which the linkages between research and desired practical outcomes are explicit. They recognize that not all of the activities linking university research to practical outcomes in agriculture are conducted by universities. They desire a much higher degree of stakeholder participation, short of micromanagement, than is typical of university research programs.

In January 1995, C-FAR employed the firm of Cook-Witter as consultants in legislative matters. The general concept of increased state support for food and agricultural research was endorsed by Governor Jim Edgar in his March 1, 1995, budget message. Early in March, Senator John Maitland introduced the legislation proposed by C-FAR. Among other items, the legislation describes the intent of the legislature that the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station be maintained among the top 10 state agricultural experiment stations in state funding.

Achieving this goal will require an increase of about $15 million annually in state funds appropriated for food and agricultural research above the level of FY95. The legislation passed and was signed into law by Governor Jim Edgar in July, 1995. Three million dollars was appropriated for FY96. An additional $3 million each was appropriated for FY97 and FY98, bringing the total for FY98 to $9 million, a 70 percent increase in three years. The FY99 appropriation was $12 million and the FY00 appropriation is $15 million.

The funds authorized by this legislation are referred to by Illinois people as C-FAR funds, even though they are not expended by the C-FAR organization itself. They are appropriated as a line in the budget of the Department of Agriculture and passed through to four Illinois institutions according to a formula. The formula is based, in general, on the proportion of state funds currently appropriated for agricultural programs at each of the four universities. It provides for 82 percent of the funds to be managed by the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station, 11 percent by Southern Illinois University, 4 percent by Illinois State University, and 3 percent by Western Illinois University. The legislation also stipulates that at least 15 percent of the money will be managed as a competitive grants program open to qualified scientists in any nonprofit institution in Illinois.

The legislation specifies that the funds shall be used to mount high priority research programs that are: relevant to Illinois food and agricultural problems and opportunities; organized around and explicitly linked to desired practical outcomes in the food and agricultural sector; and appropriately integrated over disciplines, functions, and stages in value-added processes. It specifies that not only scientific and technical but also economic and social dimensions of new technologies will be investigated.

The benefits to consumers accrue in the form of higher quality, safer, more affordable and convenient agricultural products and services. Thus, the proposed legislation specifies State general revenue as the appropriate source of funds to support public food and agricultural research. A compilation of many studies indicates that the public realizes an average annual pretax return of 41 percent on investment in public agricultural research. This is a much higher than is realized on other public sector investments.
C-FAR envisions a system of funding, communicating about, and managing food and agricultural research in Illinois that will enhance that return for the citizens of Illinois.

Don Holt, C-FAR History, revised 6-15-99