Page 126 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

USDA is now predicting that Florida will produce just 71 million boxes of oranges this year,
That’s a 13 percent decline from just last year and less than half of the 162 million boxes
produced in 2009, before citrus greening took hold in the state’s groves, according to Candice
Erick, head of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The statistics are a
morbid testament to how fast the disease spreads on the wings of the Asian citrus psyllid.

The Agriculture Department has spent about $400 million since 2009 on research to combat the
disease, which causes fruit to shrivel and become unsellable as well as eventually killing the
trees. In January, NIFA announced $13.6 million in new SCRI competitive grants to try to save
Florida’s groves.

Perhaps one of the most promising efforts is a Clemson University research project led by Feng
Luo. NIFA is giving him and his team $4.3 million this year to start a five-year study to create
new lines of breeding that are resistant to citrus greening.

Luo is sampling citrus trees across the state of Florida, hunting for “mutants” that can naturally
survive the deadly bacteria. Once he has enough mutants, he’ll be able to compare them to the
more normal, susceptible trees and isolate the genetic targets that the bacteria latch onto.

Once those targets are established, Luo said, it should be easy to just remove them using the gene
editing technique called CRISPR/Cas 9.

Science still faces uphill battle for new money and farm bill victory

What won’t be easy is getting Congress to increase funding for AFRI and make the authorizing
changes for the program that groups such as SoAR are after.

Putting aside all of the evidence that scientific gains are essential to feeding the U.S. and the rest
of the world, it just doesn’t seem that urgent to many when compared to tanking commodity
prices, rising farm debt, sinking profit margins and endangered international trade pacts.

The House Agriculture subcommittee on research,
chaired by Illinois Republican Rodney Davis, recently
held its first farm bill hearing and only four reporters
showed. Most of the audience chairs were filled in the
hearing room, but several members of the panel didn’t
show up to listen to testimony and ask questions.

The research community can make its case, but it can’t
make lawmakers listen.

“This is one of those things that’s important, but
every time around it isn’t like it’s the urgent thing,” NPPC’s Dierks said. “But it is
important and we just can’t let it go by the wayside … Sometimes the greater good for
society loses out to more specific items, but we’ve gone a long time with flat funding for ag
research. At some juncture, we have to change that equation.”

124 www.Agri-Pulse.com