As feared, the New York IPM Program was severely cut by New York’s state budget. This excerpt from a letter from Director Don Rutz tells the short version:
For the 2010-2011 budget year we were allocated $500,000 for Agricultural IPM and, most unfortunately, $0 for Community IPM. This represents about a third of our state allocation in recent years. When this is combined with our federal USDA IPM funding, we have approximately $700,000 that can be used for IPM. Therefore, we have funding for approximately only half of the IPM programming that we did in 2009. Obviously this will have most significant impacts on both our staffing and programming for the coming year.
Why is this news of a northeastern state important to us in the South? It’s not because of my personal ties there. It is because the NY IPM program is very much like those in North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Florida and the rest of the Southern states: hanging on by a fingernail, and now starting to slip. The NY IPM program was one of the best not only at supporting IPM research and developing Extension IPM programs, but also at documenting the positive impacts on the state’s economy, environment, and human health.
Cutting effective programs during a time of austerity may be unavoidable. It’s still a shame.
Filed under: Budget Tagged: | budget cuts, funding, integrated pest management
