Stabenow, Thune bill aimed to boost ag research

Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., today introduced a bill to amend the tax code to allow for the creation of charitable, tax-exempt agricultural research organizations, similar to medical research organizations which have been in existence since the 1950s.

Over the last 60 years, agricultural research has expanded food production significantly, but since the 1970s, research funding has become stagnant and fallen far behind other federal agencies, Stabenow noted.

The Charitable Agricultural Research Act seeks to address these challenges by creating agricultural research organizations that “will spur new agricultural research, leveraging private dollars to create charitable partnerships between universities and private entities to strengthen and improve American agriculture,” Stabenow said in a news release.

“In the current tight budget environment, I am pleased to introduce this bill with chairwoman Stabenow to provide a new option for financing agricultural research,” Thune said.

"Our bill will facilitate the transfer of much-needed private funding to agricultural research, helping to prevent innovation from stalling due to funding shortfalls.”