Articles Tagged with ''NIFA''

The nation’s land-grant universities face a threat from the United States Department of Agriculture’s decision to move its research arm and its economics bureau away from D.C.

The White House steps up its campaign to get Congress to approve the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement this week, dispatching U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for hearings on both sides of Capitol Hill.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tried to sell the Kansas City region as an attractive new home for employees of the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture at an “all-hands” meeting Thursday to brief those agencies’ employees. But some weren’t buying it.

Citing hundreds of millions in savings over a 15-year period, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue today announced the Kansas City region has been chosen as the new home for the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. But ERS will not be moved under the Office of Chief Economist, as previously proposed.

Facing relocation of their offices and jobs, employees of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture joined their USDA colleagues at the Economic Research Service by voting today to form a bargaining unit with the American Federation of Government Employees.

The USDA proposal to relocate the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Economic Research Service (ERS) out of the nation’s capital and to realign the ERS to report to the Office of the Chief Economist rather than to the Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics (REE) has created an unfortunate conflict between the US Department of Agriculture and the agricultural research community. While I am a retiree and speak only for myself, this is a fight that need not and should not be.

A USDA senior adviser acknowledged “missed opportunities to engage stakeholders” on the department’s plan to move the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture outside the Washington, D.C., area, but said the relocations would benefit both employees and taxpayers.

The Department of Agriculture has whittled down a list of locations still in the running to house USDA’s Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

I was stunned when I saw the USDA announcement that they were moving their food, agriculture and economics research agencies outside of Washington, DC.