Bill means $17 million toward Ag research
The Senate alloted $17.7 million to Utah State University for agriculture research, a spending bill which was encouraged by Senator Bob Bennett.
The money will fund 12 different projects for the 2006 fiscal year.
“Supporting the nationally-renowed agriculture research conducted at Utah State University is an important investment,” Bennett, chairman of the Senate Appropriation Subcommittee on Agriculture, said. “Its outstanding contributions continue to benefit America’s agriculture community and represent Utah with distinction in the field.”
The $17.7 million is just a portion of the more than $51 million that the Senate approved Sept. 22 for Utah agriculture projects.
“Senator Bennett is a big supporter of the university’s research, especially the agriculture program,”Josh Evans, public relations agriculture council chair, said.
Because of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, university officials didn’t expect to get very much money from the Senate and were very pleased with the amount they received, Evans said.
“I’m excited to see the university get this money because the agriculture program is not cheap,” Cody Bingham, ASUSU Agriculture senator, said.
The bill is now being reviewed by the House and, depending on whether it passes or not, the following projects will be funded:
* Utah Botanical Center, $1 million
* Drought Management Initiative, $1 million
* Air Quality Research Program, $1.3 million
* Biotechnology and Genomics Research Center, $1.5 million
* Jack Berryman Institute, $1.34 million
* Vegetation Manipulation Research, $800,000
* Pasture and Forage Research, $225,000
* Herdsman Pilot Demonstration Project, $500,000
* Center for Public Lands and Rural Economies, $350,000
* Poisonous Plant Lab, $3.53 million
* Forage and Range Research Lab, $3.57 million
* Plant Gene and Genetic Discovery, $971,000
The Utah Botanical Center plans on using the money for one of their projects in their research to develop water-conserving native trees and shrubs as landscape plants for residential and commercial areas, David Anderson, associate director of the Utah Botanical Center, said.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” Anderson said. “We’ve been grateful to the efforts of the Utah delegation.”
-mmackay@cc.usu.edu