Farm Bill Proposals Boost Research Facilities and HBCUs
By Katherine Knott Public land-grant universities across the country could get some much-needed help from Congress to improve their aging research facilities, which are facing $11.5 billion in deferred maintenance costs. The latest proposals to reauthorize the sprawling farm bill, which includes funding for research at public land-grants, would put anywhere from $100 million to $2.5 billion toward a competitive grant program to pay for infrastructure projects that was created—but not funded—in 2018. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) had asked for $5 billion over the next five years. But the $2.5 billion included in the House agriculture committee’s proposal would be a “huge