Land Grants Research Funding

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the FY 2026 Agriculture Appropriations Bill.  The legislation includes capacity funds that will be allocated to North Carolina’s two land grant universities, North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University, as well as competitive grant funds that may be awarded to specific projects at the two universities.  The federal government funds about two-thirds of public agricultural research in the U.S., but this share has been declining in recent years.  Expenditure on agricultural research by our global competitors has increased.

Our two land grant institutions are designated to receive funding to focus on agricultural sciences through legislation created more than 100 years ago.  Congress created the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 that established N.C. State and N.C. A&T with a primary focus on teaching.  Subsequent legislation established funds for agricultural research stations and Cooperative Extension.  North Carolina soy growers have benefited from this triad of teaching, research and Extension, and even engaged their own resources from the farmers’ soybean assessment to bolster agricultural research.

Agricultural research at our land-grants has benefited farmers for more than a century, but the system is not completely resilient.  Farmer checkoffs won’t replace the decrease in federal funding for research.  In North Carolina, the vast bulk of soybean research has been at the public land-grant institutions, and that’s paid dividends to the state’s farmers and rural communities.