Sir

I appreciate the timely appearance of the article and editorial on the support of US agricultural science (Nature 394, 207; 1998& Nature 394, 210; 211; 1998). They should serve to inform the scientific public about how science at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is currently funded and the uncertain future of the authorized new monies that would provide additional funding for plant and animal genome research (among other topics). The article also stressed the beleaguered state of the National Research Initiative (NRI), the department's competitive grants arm, where I am chief scientist on leave from the University of Missouri.

I want to emphasize that the NRI does more than support plant science. There are 29 panels, covering all aspects of agricultural research, from economics to genomics. Yes, the plant people have a tough time compared with the typical investigator funded through the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), but, with ingenuity, they can get support from the National Science Foundation or even the Department of Energy. There is still some plant science funded by the NIH, if the work is properly dressed up to be health related.

There are, however, certain areas where the NRI is about the only source of federal funds. Consider, for example, the individual working on an agricultural project to study the interaction between grazing, plants, soils and water, or university scientists studying animal diseases that are not ‘models’ useful in human medicine. There are also broad areas of animal science that are understandably unpalatable to NIH; ruminant nutrition or lactation don't exactly appeal to study sections, and who is going to fund competitive grants for genomics of agriculturally important animal species, if not the NRI?

I am on temporary (60%) assignment to the USDA. I can afford to do this only because of the indulgence of my university and because I am well funded by NIH on projects that, in a more logical setting, would be of at least equal interest to agriculture as to human health.

A sorry footnote is that the NRI may lose a further $5 million of its already small appropriation because of an amendment to pay for a fiscal obligation elsewhere in the USDA unrelated to competitive grants.