| The
Participatory Assessment of Social and Economic Impacts of Biotechnology
project is funded by the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food
Systems (IFAFS) grant, which was offered by the Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), an agency of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
IFAFS is a research, education, and extension competitive grants
program that focuses on a number of critical emerging agricultural
issues related to future food production, food safety, environmental
quality, natural resource management, and farm income.
Our project was awarded its grant in fiscal 2001 as part of the
IFAFS effort to focus on the impact of Agricultural Biotechnology.
Agricultural Biotechnology is expected to bring about various benefits
such as increased productivity, reduced adverse environmental effects,
improved nutritional and economic value, and alternative usage of
traditional crops. The IFAFS program on Agricultural Biotechnology
seeks to address some of the concerns expressed by producers, consumers,
media, interest groups, and other stakeholders regarding health,
environmental, social, and economic effects of agricultural biotechnology
products. Awards were made totaling $7,391,425 in this program area
in fiscal 2001.
Other priority program areas of IFAFS address these emerging issues:
1) Agricultural Genome; 2) Food safety, food technology, and human
nutrition; 3) New and alternative uses and production of agricultural
commodities and products; 4) Natural resource Management, including
precision agriculture; and 5) farm efficiency and profitability,
including the viability and competitiveness of small- and medium-sized
dairy, livestock, crop and other commodity operations.
For information on current CSREES programs, visit their web site
at: http://www.csrees.usda.gov
|
