The US Department of Agriculture said that it would double the funding next year for its National Research Initiative (NRI), to $240 million.
Unlike most research spending by the agriculture department, NRI grants are competitively peer-reviewed, making the programme popular with plant geneticists and other university researchers.
The rest of the agriculture department's research and development programmes would be cut back from $2.3 billion this year to $2.1 billion. But the department proposes small increases in funding for research into bovine spongiform encephalopathy and foot-and-mouth disease.
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Peer-review programme is rewarded. Nature 415, 565 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/415565d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/415565d