Hot on the heels of his decision to kill off America’s commitment to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade treaty, new US President, Donald Trump, is clamping down on agricultural research information being released publically.
The US Department of Agriculture has reportedly banned scientists and other employees in its main research division from publicly sharing summaries of scientific papers.
Reports by BuzzFeed News quoted a USDA email to staff — including about 2000 scientists — at the agency’s in-house research arm, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), to stop communicating with the public about taxpayer-funded work.
“Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents,” ARS chief of staff Sharon Drumm, wrote in a department-wide email.
“This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content.”
Other US press reports said government agencies, including the National Park Service, were also told to stop using Twitter accounts or issuing press statements on social media.
The new administration had also imposed a freeze on grants and contracts from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Buzzfeed said when asked if the gag notice constituted a halt on the publication of academic articles, scientists were told research papers could be published in academic journals and presented at conferences, but all media interviews must be approved by Washington.
The USDA’s internal note did not explicitly mention the new presidential administration, however department scientists had interpreted it as a message from the White House that changes were coming to USDA.
Buzzfeed noted while some Agricultural Research Service work touched on sensitive subjects like pesticides and genetically modified food, its research was generally less politically charged than that conducted by other agencies, especially those focused on understanding climate change, such as the EPA.
Under the Obama administration, the USDA put research money into finding ways of cutting down the release of methane from cattle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
However, research into climate change related themes may be increasingly sensitive under the new Trump administration.
Like President Trump, former Georgia Governor, Sonny Perdue, the man considered likely to become US Agriculture Secretary, has previously dismissed consensus among climate scientists that Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are warming due to human activity.
Mr Trump won last last November’s presidential race with an 80 per cent vote of support from America’s agricultural areas.
Veteran Illinois-based farm sector writer, Alan Guebert, believed US farmers should brace themselves for the likelihood Donald Trump would do as he says, even if it was not necessarily what the agriculture sector was expecting of the Presidential candidate many supported.
“Also, it appears that Congressional Republicans are not prepared to deal with their rogue party leader.”
Mr Guebert noted the USDA, like every government agency was “publicly-funded, publicly-managed, and public-serving and should be completely transparent”.
“It should be completely responsive because it is, after all, completely ours.”
If it persists the US information lockdown goes against the trend being urged by research authorities worldwide which have noted the importance of more agricultural research transparency to encourage community understanding and commercial uptake.
Irish research boss, Declan J Troy, who spoke to the meat industry in Australia in November, emphasised how critical it was to have discoveries discussed and transferred from the laboratory to industry.
The assistant director of research at Irish agriculture and development authority, Teagasc, said the big push in Europe was for public research that delivered an economic benefit and key to that was a knowledge transfer imperative.
"It is every researcher's responsibility to do something with their results," Dr Troy told the Australian Meat Processor Corporation’s The Vital Ingredient conference.
The Irish had found one of the best ways to put that transfer of knowledge into action was involving industry at the early stage of research work.
"It is too common a phenomenon in public research to leave those results on the shelf and move onto the next project.
Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
