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Covering agriculture I’ve spent my fair share of time listening to farmers talk about how they don’t have any money. Well… they have it, but they can’t touch the cash because it all has to be wrapped up in their operation in case the bottom of the ag economy falls out.

A personal favorite of mine:

“If you want to die rich become a farmer,” farmer Mark Haser told me last year as we stood on his farm in Beaver Crossing, Neb. “Because that’s all you’re going to be able to do on the rich side of things.”

These kinds of conversations popped back into my head last week while I was on the line for a conference call hosted by Families USA, a healthcare advocacy organization. They were touting new research stating more than 3.2 million small businesses were eligible for a $15 billion in tax credits in the Affordable Care Act.

One of the small business owners was ReShonda Young, the owner of Alpha Express, a machine part and farm equipment delivery service in Waterloo, Iowa.

Michael Scuse, acting undersecretary of food and agriculture for the USDA, addresses last year's International Food Aid & Development Conference in June 2011 in Kansas City, Mo. (USDAgov/Flickr)

The U.S. created its food aid program more than 50 years ago in part to alleviate surpluses in U.S. agricultural commodities. Though surpluses aren’t a persistent issue today, world hunger has only become a more acute problem.

The challenge for governments, aid agencies and recipient countries is to create a collaborative food aid system that accommodates both the needs of the U.S. agriculture industry and growing food insecurity among a mushrooming population.

Almost 10 million people will be served by U.S. food assistance programs this year, according to Michael Scuse, an acting undersecretary of food and agriculture for the USDA.

The USDA and the U. S. Agency for International Development sponsored an international conference on food aid, "From Harvest to Basket: Weaving Together Agricultural Markets and Food Security," which was held this week in Kansas City, Mo.

Scuse told conference attendees that two of the government’s largest programs, known as Food for Progress and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition programs, are key to creating food security for a world population expected to top 9 billion by 2050.

Administering the programs is challenging, though, and critics say politics too often gets in the way of delivering food economically and effectively.

The proposed NBAF lab in Manhattan, Kan., is on the campus of Kansas State University. (Laura Ziegler for Harvest Public Media)

Reporters this week got an inside look into the deliberations the National Research Council (NRC) is having while studying plans for the controversial bio-defense facility proposed for the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, Kan.

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) is currently under review by oversight agencies. A special NRC committee held three teleconferences with agencies already doing research in areas similar to NBAF’s focus – some of the world’s deadliest animal diseases. 

The chairman of the NRC committee is Terry McElwain, director of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory and associate director of the School for Global Animal Health in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University. The committee’s task, McElwain said, is to assess the threats of foreign and zoonotic animal diseases to the U.S. and define what is needed in a new diagnostic and research bio containment lab.

Committee members posed questions to directors of other labs currently working in biodefense. Many of the committee members’ questions revealed deficits in existing labs.

For example, Lt. Col. Neal Woollen, who is with the Army’s primary biodefense lab at Fort Detrick, Md., was asked what kind of animals they have the capacity to study.

“Our animal handling capabilities here are pretty much the traditional lab animal species that range from small rodents up through non-human primates, “ Woollen said.

A rendering of the proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kan. (Courtesy nbafinkansas.org)

It’s another big week for NBAF, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility under construction in Manhattan, Kan.

A panel of experts from the National Academy of Sciences will be hearing expert testimony about the animal health lab in three teleconferences, beginning tomorrow. And the project’s future may be at stake because this committee is tasked with reviewing cost-cutting alternatives to NBAF.

The teleconference lineup provides some indication of what issues will be considered by the committee in its evaluation:

Wednesday:First up is the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, which studies potential bioterror agents and points of vulnerability.

Thursday:The director of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases will testify.  The institute’s mission is similar to that of the NBAF, but the lab cannot accommodate research on large animals. Such capability is necessary for research on Foot and Mouth Disease, which is a top priority for the new lab.

Friday:The director of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories will talk about that facility’s research on vector borne diseases, or those usually spread by insects, also an important aspect of the NBAF research.