"Agroforestry is about rural America and trying to help the family farm. It's impossible in today's environment and economy for the family farm to compete with what's going on in the corporate farm," Garrett said. "What we're trying to do in our program is to find niche opportunities for the family farmer, and the gourmet mushroom industry has a lot of potential."

Coalition targets mushrooms, pork Group protests lawmakers' use of 'earmarks' to win funding
April 12, 2006

One man's mushrooms are another man's pork.

A $1.7 million University of Missouri-Columbia project to research mushroom markets was a target for opposition this afternoon by a grass-roots coalition on a nationwide tour against government waste.

Don Shrubshell photo University of Missouri-Columbia is the target of a protest today by a group critical of a $1.7 million federal grant that includes research into markets for Shiitake mushrooms.

Members of the Americans for Prosperity Found were slated to hold a rally at 3 p.m. at MU's agricultural building. It's part of the national Ending Earmarks Express tour highlighting examples of what the group considers pork barrel spending.

In 2003, MU received $1.7 million in federal funding for agricultural research that includes a shiitake mushroom project. The money came through a congressional "earmark," which the group says has less transparency than the approval process for a line item in the budget.

Group spokeswoman Annie Patnaude said $1.7 million to "cultivate mushrooms doesn't seem like a high national priority," she said. "It exemplifies that many earmarks are not high national priorities," she said. "Maybe that deserves funding in some way or another, but certainly this process is not the way to go about getting funding for something like that."

MU Forestry Professor Gene Garrett said the money is being used for various research projects, including the study of how gourmet mushrooms can become a viable crop for Missouri farmers.

"Agroforestry is about rural America and trying to help the family farm. It's impossible in today's environment and economy for the family farm to compete with what's going on in the corporate farm," Garrett said. "What we're trying to do in our program is to find niche opportunities for the family farmer, and the gourmet mushroom industry has a lot of potential."

Tom Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity Found, stressed that the group is not against research but opposes using congressional earmarks to fund it. "We're not trying to be some Grinch and say, 'No spending for anything,' " he said. "We're just saying, 'Let's set some priorities.' "

The country is in the red because members of Congress are allowed to slip frivolous pork projects into the budget at the last minute, Phillips said. Americans for Prosperity Found supports legislation that would require federal lawmakers to allocate funding for regional proposals as budget line items and attach their names to those requests. "At that point, members of Congress would be more thoughtful with the taxpayers' money," Phillips said.

U.S. Sen. Kit Bond has allocated federal funds for various MU agricultural projects, although his spokesman, Rob Ostrander, didn't know immediately whether Bond was responsible for the $1.7 million earmark. Projects that receive earmarked funding go through a "stringent" approval process, Ostrander said. "These projects mean jobs, a stronger local economy, better communities and more accessible health care," he said. "Senator Bond is more than willing to look at ways to make the process more transparent, but he does not want to see smaller states like Missouri hurt while larger states like New York or California get all the funding at our expense."

Garrett would not speculate whether the university would lose funding if lawmakers had to include the research projects as budget items rather than earmarks. "But I do know the dollars we receive here in our agroforestry program are put to extremely good use and we are careful about our expenditures," he said.

The Ending Earmarks Express stopped in St. Louis this morning to oppose spending $1.5 million in federal funds on a former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt historical archive. And yesterday, a stop in Kentucky brought attention to a $36,300 Department of Homeland Security grant to help protect the state's bingo halls from terrorists.

Phillips said he understands people want elected officials to secure federal dollars for regional projects. "But if it's a project a member of Congress thinks is absolutely important, whether it is mushrooms or any other project, make it a line-item request and then have a good, open debate," he said. "The top priorities will win out."

Janese Heavin
(573) 815-1705 jheavin@tribmail.com.