Governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa’s congressional delegation are calling on U.S. Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins to relocate USDA research projects to central Iowa.
Iowa was not included in the plan released this summer that would shift most USDA employees out of the Washington, D.C. metro to cities in five other states. Senator Chuck Grassley said Ames a prime location. “Ames has the means and the USDA relationship needed to provide a very smooth transition since it’s already got a large concentration of USDA facilities and employees,” Grassley said in a conference call with agricultural reporters.
Secretary Rollins plans to start shifting functions at the Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland, to other sites and permanently close the facility in a few years. “The current facility in Maryland is named after a native Iowan and former Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace,” Grassley said. “Seems very fitting, because of Henry Wallace, locate some of that facility’s ag research to its namesake’s home.”
Four units of the Agricultural Research Center are already located in Ames, including its National Animal Disease Center. Grassley said Iowa State University works closely with those facilities and USDA researchers use ISU’s high-performance computing services. “Ongoing projects at the Beltsville Research Facility in Maryland, right outside of Washington, align with the efforts that have been happening at Iowa State University for decades,” Grassley said.
Grassley, the governor, Senator Ernst and all four Iowans who serve in the U.S. House signed onto a letter to the ag secretary. It cites Iowa’s low cost of living for employees who might move from the nation’s capitol to Iowa as well as the real-world experience USDA research would find in Iowa’s fields.