ORONO – All of the land-grant research facilities that serve Maine’s agriculture industries – potato, blueberry, apple, forestry and dairy – are in jeopardy of losing their federal funding under President Bush’s recent agricultural budget proposal.

The $2.3 million in cuts represent more than one-third of the total $6 million research budget handled by the University of Maine and affects farmers and home gardeners throughout the state.

The research deals with areas as wide-ranging as biodiversity, ecological preservation, sustainability of rural communities, watershed management and wildlife habitat.

“This would be a disaster,” Bruce Wiersma, the University of Maine dean of natural sciences, forestry and agriculture, said this week. “These funds have been in place for 130 years and through the research funded have built the world’s cheapest, best and safest food supply.

“Do you want to develop a new product with fish or vegetables? We do it. Do you want to study the environmental impact of pesticide application? We do it. Do you want better water quality? We do it. Do you want to grow trees better? We do it,” Wiersma said.

The research stations include five facilities from Aroostook County to the University of Maine in Orono to Highmoor Farm in Livermore and one experimental forest, and they employ 132 people.

“Fifty graduate students receive assistantships through these formula funds,” Wiersma said. “All would be lost.

“We would close all five experimental farms, the university forest, animal diagnostic lab, soils analytical laboratory and the ornamentals garden and greenhouses,” he said. “Without these support facilities, applied research would virtually come to a halt.”

The ripple effect would be felt beyond farmers to household gardeners and homeowners, as the Cooperative Extension Service would be similarly affected.

One of the agricultural facilities at the University of Maine, the Maine Agricultural Center, is a unique blend of Cooperative Extension Service and research operation.

“The Maine Agricultural Center, which provides $45,000 worth of educational programs and research [each year], would close,” said John Rebar, Extension educator. “We also have jointly appointed faculty positions, and we would be forced to pick up about $48,000 in salaries and benefits [or lose those people]. The research stations do the research, but we do the outreach. The proposed cuts would have a negative impact on us as well.”

Rebar said many of the Extension Service’s staff are doing applied research in the stations, and many of its community programs are held at the stations themselves.

“This is a very serious situation,” he said.

The research stations are funded in four ways, with federal, state and industry money, and through small grants. They operate on a $6 million annual budget.

Each state has its own research stations which are funded through the federal Hatch Act for natural resources and agriculture and through the McIntire-Stennis Act for forestry.

Research cuts in other states, also threatened in Bush’s proposed budget, could have far-reaching impacts on Maine as they concentrate on food-source cancer fighters, new antibiotics, natural ways to soak up contamination in soils, and tests that can screen against viruses that might be used in a bioterror attack.

Bush proposes cutting the entire federal funding to Maine of $2.3 million, leaving in limbo what happens to the state’s $5.2 million matching funds.

“Maine does well in competing for national grant funding,” Wiersma said. “But without the federal funds, we cannot operate. These are the only agricultural research supports for Maine, period.”

Wiersma is banking on Congress’ reputation as a staunch supporter of farm funds to save Maine’s funding. “I have to really believe this will be turned around. If not, I’m done,” he said.

Although Maine’s agriculture leaders are concerned about a wide variety of other program cuts that are proposed, the chance of losing the research stations has them most worried.

“This research is critical to Maine’s potato industry,” Don Flannery of the Maine Potato Board said last week. “Ninety percent of all our research on late blight, breeding, crop rot – soup to nuts, actually – all of it is conducted in the research station here.”

Flannery said the research station’s integrated pest management program alone saved farmers more than $1 million in pesticide applications last year because a study showed how chemical use could be reduced.

“There is no way these cuts could be made up either at the state level or by the industry,” Flannery said.

David Bell of the wild blueberry industry said that since wild blueberries are grown only in Maine, the University of Maine research station at Orono is the only place in the country where the industry’s research is conducted.

“This is a very robust research center,” Bell said. “We have at least two dozen ongoing projects. These cuts will severely hurt our industry.”

Bell added: “The big irony is that this is the cheapest source of help to the farmers. Once the research is done, the farmers can implement new practices without cost sharing with the government.”

Studies by Iowa State University and Yale University economists found that taxpayer investments in agricultural research and development at the nation’s land grant universities have yielded an approximate 50 percent annual rate of return on investments since 1970.

Wiersma said the effect on Maine’s forestry research would also be profound.

“A generation of forest resource managers have been trained to understand, manage and respect Maine’s forests with these funds,” he said. “This is the base for the sustainability of Maine’s forests.”

Maine’s agriculture leaders plan to lobby Maine’s congressional delegation, which already is working to alleviate the situation.

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe said on Thursday that closing the experimental farms and facilities would impact disproportionately rural states such as Maine.

“I have been in contact with the University of Maine, state officials and Maine farmers to assess exactly how the loss of this funding would affect the agricultural community,” Snowe said.

“Cutting research programs that help people who work in the woods and in the fields does a disservice to Maine and rural areas throughout the country,” U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat, said last week.

Both promised to work with their congressional colleagues to ensure funding is restored.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins could not be reached for comment as she is in Iraq.