The Idaho Agriculture Experiment Station at Moscow, ID, was established in 1892. There are 13 Idaho locations with 76 fulltime faculty, 145 staff members plus student researchers. The budget for the 2009 year was $21 million of which 90 percent was state and 10 percent was USDA Hatch Act funds. They received $17 million in grant money.
As one of its first actions in 1892, the University of Idaho established the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station to qualify for direct federal payments authorized by 1887’s Hatch Act to states for agricultural-related research within land-grant universities.
Congress recognized that a higher education for even rural Americans plus agricultural research could provide an important economic engine for our developing nation. Land grant universities, created through the Morrill Act of 1862, represented President Abraham Lincoln’s foresight of a nation beyond the Civil War made great by an educated citizenry and powerful system of commerce.
Today IAES operates 13 research and extension centers. It is responsible for statewide food and agricultural research. State and National Research priorities by the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station (IAES) are highly coordinated with the college’s signature programs and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Research programming is also influenced by other Idaho, regional, and federal partners.
This system plays a role in stabilizing Idaho’s economy. UI research in 2006 documented that Idaho agribusiness was responsible for generating $21 billion in total sales, 156,599 jobs, $4.2 billion in wages, and $8.4 billion in gross state product, making agribusiness the biggest contributor to Idaho’s economic base.
IAES partners include agricultural commodity commissions and the Idaho Legislature. Cooperation with Washington and Oregon experiment stations through the Pacific Northwest Tri-State partnership has generated research that steadily improves our agricultural economic competitiveness.
Also, USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are co-located with collaborating IAES researchers at seven research and extension centers throughout Idaho.
The experiment station’s core administrative team is based on the University of Idaho’s Moscow campus. However, IAES personnel and research infrastructure reach statewide. The IAES map shows the experiment station is a complex, integrated network of locations, facilities, and faculty and staff all dedicated to performing research in support of Idaho’s complex agricultural industry and its citizens.
The IAES supports 76 full-time faculty equivalents distributed among approximately 115 faculty members. Supporting them are 145 full-time technical staff including paid student interns. Most CALS faculty with research responsibilities have ‘split’ appointments with additional academic and extension responsibilities. Faculty are typically affiliated with one of eight academic departments in the college.
The experiment station provides many services to the college and university: Idaho Foundation Seed and Nuclear Potato Programs; Analytical Sciences Laboratory; Agricultural Statistical Programs; and Life Sciences Technology Transfer and Licensing.
Other services include research core facilities such as a Biological Safety Level-3 laboratory, microscopy, advanced equipment for flow cytometry, nucleotide sequencing, plus research mentioned in weekly profiles of R&E centers in this publication.
The IAES in fiscal 2009 received an annual appropriated budget of $21 million with 90 percent from the state and 10 percent from USDA Hatch Act funds. Faculty researchers in the college currently attract some $17 million a year in external grants and contracts with $6.6 million from USDA, $3.4 million from the National Institutes of Health, and $1.5 million from Idaho’s commodity commissions.
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