News from the Executive Director

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the snowy East Coast U.S. where we have been hit hard by Old Man Winter forcing IR-4 Headquarters to close or truncate many work days. Regrettably, these shutdowns have impacted many aspects of normal IR-4 work flow.

Funding update

Congress approved and the President signed a funding law for the rest of federal fiscal year 2014 that restored IR-4 funding through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to the 2012 level of $11.916 million. This funding restoration and a similar one in USDA-ARS, while extremely helpful, does not fully address the current funding shortfalls associated with demand for IR-4 services. The funding restoration may not address the deep cuts that certain USDA-ARS sites experienced during sequestration.

We did get some good news through the signing of the 2014 Farm Bill, where the law contains language that reflects IR-4’s current mission support specialty crops and minor uses. The Farm Bill also authorizes IR-4 to work in the international arena to help U.S. growers export their goods by removing trade barriers caused by residues of pesticides in specialty crops and minor agricultural uses. On behalf of the IR-4 Project I want to thank the members of the IR-4 Commodity Liaison Committee and Minor Crop Farmers Alliance for their support in the restoration of IR-4 funding and Farm Bill reauthorization.

Several of us at IR-4 Headquarters have been spending significant time going through all the thoughtful comments that were submitted in association with the IR-4 Strategic Planning survey. There were 550 individual responses with comments on multiple questions. We are progressing with our goal to release a draft strategic plan for review and comment in spring 2014 and finalization later this summer.

The new Strategic Plan is only one step of the process required to support the reauthorization of NRSP-4 (IR-4) by the State Agricultural Experimental Stations. IR-4 will be subject to a comprehensive project accomplishment/project direction review by USDA later this year. IR-4 will submit a future Project Statement outlining directions noted in the Strategic Plan. Needless to say, we are expecting several very busy months.

In closing, I want to thank and acknowledge Drs. Monte Johnson and Sally Schneider on their tremendous support and service to IR-4. Monte and Sally served as the National Program Leaders for IR-4 activities within USDA-NIFA and USDA-ARS, respectively. Monte retired from USDA-NIFA at the end of the year while Sally has received a promotion to Associate Administrator within USDA-ARS. Congratulations to both as they enter new phases of their lives.

All the best,

Jerry