A new report by the Kerr Center, a non-profit foundation in Poteau, identifies the kinds of research done by the College of Agriculture at OSU from 1989-1999 and who funded that research.

A Decade of Agricultural Research Funding at OSU and Oklahoma Farm Statistics summarizes the research done on cattle, poultry, hogs, wheat, peanuts, cotton and soybeans.

"This is a great resource for policy makers. We've needed this type of information regarding research at OSU for a long time," commented Dennis Howard, Oklahoma Commissioner of Agriculture.

The percentage of money contributed by both public and private sources, totals spent by commodity, the research projects done by various departments in the college and who funded them, amount of research money spent per farm over time, as well as basic facts about Oklahoma agriculture, are some of the topics covered.

The new report is in the tradition of a series of reports titled Oklahoma State Expenditures in Brief published by the Kerr Foundation in the mid-70s. "The purpose of those annual reports was to provide the public with understandable information about expenditures by state government," says James E. Horne, PhD, president of the Kerr Center.

In contrast, this report focuses only on agriculture and how agriculture research funds are expended, but its purpose is similar: to help citizens gain a better understanding of Oklahoma's agriculture and the research being done to support it, much of it paid for with public funds. In fact, state and federal funds together provided 62 per cent of the College of Agriculture's funding during this ten-year period.

However, private sources provided a significant amount 36 per cent– of research money overall to the College of Agriculture, though the percentage varied widely from department to department, with the Departments of Animal Science and Plant and Soil Sciences receiving greater percentages of their funding from private sources.

Agricultural research plays a significant role in shaping the kind of food and fiber production system we have in this country, Horne added. In an appendix, the report lists the titles of hundreds of research projects, their sponsors and funding amounts. The top five private contributors to OSU agricultural research, by commodity, are profiled in brief.

The Kerr Center gathered information from five agriculture-related departments at OSU. OSU is Oklahoma's land-grant university. Land-grant universities began to be established in each state in the late 1800s to train students in mechanical and agricultural subjects. Sources of funding for the land grant system are unique in that local county taxes, state, and federal dollars are all utilized.

A limited number of copies of the report are available from the Kerr Center.
Read the report online

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