Mr. MCHUGH. When do the principal researchers carrying out this work anticipate that the work will be completed? Dr. JORDAN. No specific termination date has been identified. RURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTERS Mr. MCHUGH. Please provide a description of the work that has been done under the rural development centers program to date and the period of the existing contract. Dr. JORDAN. The centers address a broad spectrum of problems facing rural areas. The centers' most important task is to provide a catalytic base to stimulate and focus the research leadership within the land-grant institutions. The fiscal year 1991 grants terminate between June 1993 and August 1994. The fiscal year 1992 grant proposals have been requested. Mr. McHUGH. How long has this work been underway and how much has been appropriated through fiscal year 1992? Dr. JORDAN. Grants have been awarded from funds appropriated as follows: fiscal year 1971, $75,000; fiscal year 1972, $225,000; fiscal year 1973, $317,000; fiscal year 1974 through fiscal year 1981, $300,000 per year; fiscal year 1982 through fiscal year 1985, $311,000 per year; fiscal year 1986 through fiscal year 1987, $363,000 per year; fiscal year 1988, $475,000; fiscal year 1989, $500,000; fiscal year 1990, $494,000; and fiscal years 1991 and 1992, $500,000 per year. A total of $7,456,000 has been appropriated. Mr. MCHUGH. Where is this work being carried out? Dr. JORDAN. The regional rural development centers are located as follows: Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, Pennsylvania State University; North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, Iowa State University; Southern Rural Development Center, Mississippi State University; and Western Rural Development Center, Oregon State University. Most of the research sponsored by the four regional centers is actually performed by resident faculty at land-grant universities in the respective region through subcontracts from the center's grant. In addition, a special project at North Dakota State University is included in the appropriation. Mr. MCHUGH. What has been accomplished to date? Dr. JORDAN. Results of the projects are reported annually in a comprehensive report. One example from the past year is the creation and distribution of a "Local Government Education and Training Manual" to help local officials, who are usually volunteers and part-time workers, with strategic planning, personnel management, budget building, fiscal capacity analysis, and other problems. Another project, the National Groundwater Policy Project, evaluated options for integrated research and extension policy programs to help officials, scientists, and other policy people understand why people take actions which lead to groundwater contamination. Mr. MCHUGH. When do the principal researcher carrying out this work anticipate that the work will be completed? Dr. JORDAN. A specific termination date has not been identified. RURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, GEORGIA Mr. MCHUGH. Please provide a description of the work that has been done under the rural economic development program to date and the period of the existing contract. Dr. JORDAN. The grantee has just completed and published a study titled, "A Survey of Small Business in Rural Georgia." This study, one of several related studies completed this year, concludes that small rural businesses need more assistance in obtaining financing than larger ones and that they fail to utilize all the financial services available to them. They are also less able to provide benefits to workers such as health insurance, child care, or retirement plans. These will become more critical issues if small firm development is to be a part of rural economic policy. Additional studies of the characteristics of rural small businesses, the impacts of workplace literacy programs, and the effects of local economies on small business development are underway and will be reported as they are completed. The fiscal year 1991 grant supports research through June 1992. CSRS has received the university's 1992 grant proposal and it is being reviewed. Mr. MCHUGH. How long has this work been underway and how much has been appropriated through fiscal year 1992? Dr. JORDAN. The work supported by this grant began in fiscal year 1990 and the appropriation for fiscal year 1990 was $739,000. The fiscal years' 1991 and 1992 appropriations are $744,000 per year. A total of $2,227,000 has been appropriated. Mr. MCHUGH. Where is the work being carried out? Dr. JORDAN. Research is being conducted at the University of Georgia. Mr. MCHUGH. What has been accomplished to date? Dr. JORDAN. The project has created a research laboratory in 20 rural Georgia counties to see which rural small business development programs work under which conditions. The flow of specific investigations from this laboratory setting is just now reaching its peak. This ability to scientifically examine the effects of several State and Federal program initiatives in a constant and controlled setting is singular and unique among ali of the Department of Agriculture's extramural research projects dealing with the viability of rural areas. Mr. MCHUGH. When do the principal researchers carrying out this work anticipate that the work will be completed? Dr. JORDAN. It is anticipated that fiscal year 1992 appropriations will support research work through the end of September 1993. No specific termination date has been identified. RURAL ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH, ILLINOIS Mr. McHUGH. Please provide a description of the work that has been done under the rural environmental research program to date and the period of the existing contract. Dr. JORDAN. Field research was jointly initiated in Western Illinois by the University of Illinois and Western Illinois University to evaluate the effect of alternative farming systems on economic sustainability and environmental quality, and the impacts on longterm soil productivity. Scientists from the National Soil Tilth Labo ratory of the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, located at Ames, Iowa, are also collaborating in this research. Progress toward achieving the objectives of this study during the first seven months was significant. Computer information programs for estimating costs and returns and analyzing farmers decisions on sustainable agriculture systems were obtained and put into use by project coordinators. Also in 1991, detailed soil sampling and analyses were completed by the conventional and sustainable agriculture farms to compare soil productivity characteristics under the two farming systems. The fiscal year 1991 grant supports research through June 1992. The proposal for the fiscal year 1992 grant has been received and is currently being reviewed. Mr. MCHUGH. How long has this work been underway and how much has been appropriated through fiscal year 1992? Dr. JORDAN. The work supported by this grant began in fiscal year 1991 and the appropriation for fiscal year 1991 was $75,000. The fiscal year 1992 appropriation is $125,000. A total of $200,000 has been appropriated. Mr. McHUGH. Where is this work being carried out? Dr. JORDAN. Research is being conducted at field sites and laboratories at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and Western Illinois University at Macomb, and on collaborating farmers fields. Mr. MCHUGH. What has been accomplished to date? Dr. JORDAN. In 1991, investigators at Western Illinois University began a process to identify and assess computer models suitable for analyzing the economic and environmental results of decisions that farmers need to make in the context of sustainable agriculture. A computer program called Cost and Return Estimator, or CARE was selected and used to prepare a sample budget for a cooperating farmer to help him analyze his farming system. Another resource analysis program, PLANETOR, prepared by the Minnesota Extension Service is being compared with the CARE program to determine the value in assisting farmers in making management decisions. Preliminary results from detailed soil samples taken on adjacent farms, one a "benchmark" non-pesticide, limited fertilizer farm, and the other a conventional farm, showed that conventional tillage with pesticide and herbicide applications may reduce the numbers of surface and soil invertebrate insects. Data were also obtained in 1991 and are being analyzed on the chemical and nutrient levels of soils, and use of reduced levels of herbicides for weed control on soils on the limited pesticide and conventional farms. Mr. McHUGH. When do the principal researchers carrying out this work anticipate that the work will be completed? Dr. JORDAN. The university researchers anticipate that work may be completed in fiscal year 1993. RURAL POLICIES INSTITUTE Mr. McHUGH. Please provide a description of the work that has been done under the Rural Policies Institute program to date and the period of the existing contract. Dr. JORDAN. A consortium of three universities receives this grant. The purpose of the consortium is to develop methods and data to estimate impacts of current and alternative policies on the economic vitality of rural people and places on both a regional and national basis. Much of the first year's work has been devoted to strategic planning, development of appropriate data bases, and the creation of appropriate organizational linkages among the faculty and administrators of the three States. This has resulted in the decision to select a number of "typical" or "representative" rural communities to be used as test sites for policy analysis. This operational mechanism will be completed in the second year of the grant. The 1991 research grants terminate between June 1992 and July 1996. The universities have submitted their 1992 grant proposals and they are being reviewed. Mr. MCHUGH. How long has this work been underway and how much has been appropriated through fiscal year 1992? Dr. JORDAN. The work supported by these grants began in fiscal year 1991 and the appropriation for fiscal year 1991 was $375,000. The fiscal year 1992 appropriation is $525,000. A total of $900,000 has been appropriated. Mr. MCHUGH. Where is this work being carried out? Dr. JORDAN. Research is being conducted at the University of Missouri, the University of Arkansas, and the University of Nebraska. Mr. McHUGH. What has been accomplished to date? Dr. JORDAN. Through the use of typical community analyses, the consortium will be able to provide estimates of the impacts of programmatic proposals prior to their implementation and funding. To accomplish this primary analysis will require a concentrated data base and input from experts outside the three institutions involved. First year funding has been directed to solving these operational problems. Thus the first year's accomplishments lie mainly in the development of an appropriate organizational structure and operational procedures to make the policy analysis work. Mr. McHUGH. When do the principal researchers carrying out this work anticipate that the work will be completed? Dr. JORDAN. The university researchers indicate that the organizational mechanisms and procedures are now well established and that research results will begin to become available in the latter part of fiscal year 1992. A termination date has not been determined. RUSSIAN WHEAT APHID Mr. MCHUGH. Please provide a description of the work that has been done under the Russian wheat aphid program to date and the period of the exiting contract? Dr. JORDAN. This is a project addressing the Russian wheat aphid, a pest from western China and the southern Asiatic Republics of the former Soviet Union. For a pest of this type which came to the United States by way of Mexico in 1987, it has proven most effective to go to its original geographic range to find naturally occurring predators, parasites, and pathogens and resistant germplasm of wheat and barley that control the pest in its native home. These controlling factors have been discovered and scientists in Oregon will begin releases of the parasitic wasp, Eriopis connexa, and complete studies on another parasite, Aphidius picipes, of the Russian wheat aphid. They will determine the number of genes in a source of resistant wheat germplasm-P1294994. The other four states also will work with this source of germplasm in various stages of development of agronomic lines. Washington and Oregon scientists are taking different approaches to determining the affect of Russian wheat aphid infestations on root and shoot development. Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California will assess tolerance of some selected common wheat lines. Oregon and Washington will begin development of tolerant club wheat varieties that have suitable agronomic characteristics, disease resistance, and end-use quality. California, Colorado, and Idaho are doing the same for winter and spring wheats. Colorado and Washington will continue to assess the influence of Conservation Reserve Program land on abundance and distribution of the pest aphid and to assess CRP lands as a beneficial reservoir for natural biological control agents. They are evaluating trapping methods which will give early warning to producers so that they can better control the aphid. The deployment of resistant germplasm in locally adapted varieties and the evaluation of parasites, predators, and pathogens of the Russian wheat aphid in each production region requires alot of similar but locally targeted research and development. The fiscal year 1991 grants terminate between March 1992 and March 1993. Proposals are in preparation for fiscal year 1992 awards. The fiscal year 1992 grants for the University of Idaho and Washington State University have been awarded and support research through May 1993 and March 1994, respectively. Other proposals are in preparation for fiscal year 1992 awards. Mr. McHUGH. How long has this work been underway and how much has been appropriated through fiscal year 1992? Dr. JORDAN. Grants have been awarded from funds appropriated as follows: fiscal year 1989, $100,000; fiscal year 1990, $346,000; fiscal year 1991, $350,000; and fiscal year 1992, $437,000. A total of $1,233,000 has been appropriated. Mr. MCHUGH. Where is this work being carried out? Dr. JORDAN. Research is being conducted at Washington State University, Oregon State University, University of Idaho, University of California, and Colorado State University. Mr. MCHUGH. What has been accomplished to date? Dr. JORDAN. The geographic origin of the pest aphid has been determined, a survey has been made to identify the species and kinds of predators, parasites, and pathogens that attack it in nature, and over 45 species and strains of beneficial organisms have been obtained. Methods for propagation and distribution of these natural enemies of the pest have been developed. Protocols for release and evaluation have been developed. One predator species and two species of stingless, parasitic wasps have been established in wheat in the western United States. Wheat and barley germplasm collections have been screened to find sources of resistance. Methods for evaluating resistance have been developed. Some resistance germplasm sources have been released to breeders. Methods for predicting outbreaks of the aphid pest by monitoring suction traps have been developed in the Northwest and warnings are communicated to producers. Scientists have determined what size of infestation |