College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Jeffrey Armstrong

Incoming freshmen study microscopic samples at Kellogg Biological Station in Kalamazoo County. The station is one of 15 research stations in the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station system. Photo by Kurt Stepnitz

MSU Professor Jim Kelly speaks at the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station's Bean and Beet Research Farm, at its opening in a new location in Frankenmuth Aug. 25, 2009. Photo by Kurt Stepnitz

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — Scores of Michigan State University Extension offices and research stations across the state are jeopardized by a potential funding cutoff, if Gov. Jennifer Granholm blocks appropriations from reaching them.

That's the assessment of Jeffrey Armstrong, dean of MSU's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, who faces shutting down 82 Extension offices, 15 agricultural and biological research stations and other bioeconomy-based research and Extension programs.

If a gubernatorial line-item veto is issued for state funding of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station and MSU Extension, the two programs will no longer receive federal matching dollars or millions of dollars in grant funding, he said, and will cease to exist.

"The Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station system and MSU Extension are providing the research, development and education for Michigan's emerging ‘green' economy," Armstrong said. "If funding is eliminated or withheld, we destroy our ability to build the one economic sector in which Michigan has an advantage."

Those programs, with some 3,000 associated workers and many more residents who rely on their services, are funded under a budget bill on the governor's desk totaling $64 million for the fiscal year that started Oct.1. Because a budget wasn't in place in time for the start of the fiscal year this month, a continuation budget funds government programs until the end of the month.

But withholding of October's payment for Extension and Experiment Station research and education has raised concerns that funding for these critical MSU programs is on the chopping block.

If funding is cut for the two programs, MSUE and MAES will be immediately impacted. Operations such as animal care and completion of critical research harvests will continue until the university can divest such assets. The university is in the process of reviewing all contracts to determine how they can be phased out, Armstrong said, since match requirements cannot be met.

"MSU does not have the resources to fill the gap left by eliminating valuable research and Extension," Armstrong said. "The university is already challenged in its effort to keep tuition low and compete as a world-class institution in an economic climate that is predicted to get worse in the next few years."

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