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Funding could lure USDA research station
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Published: June 24, 2009
KANNAPOLIS – The North Carolina Research Campus has its foot in the door for getting funding for a federal research center in Kannapolis.
U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell introduced $500,000 in the House budget – whittled down from about $2 million through the House Agriculture Committee – for a U.S. Department of Agriculture research center located in the Core Research Laboratory.
"This is such a great value for the federal government because you have all of these resources at the North Carolina Research Campus," said Leanne Powell, Kissell's chief of staff. "It will instantly become the top site for human nutrition."
The funding would be for staffing and administration of the research station, Powell said.
The funding made it through committee scrutiny last Thursday, Powell said, and should go to vote before the full House sometime after the July 4 holiday.
The largest of the USDA's human nutrition research centers is in Beltsville, Md.
Started in the 1890s, the 'mission of the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center is to define, through research, the role of food and its components in optimizing human health and in reducing the risk of nutritionally related disorders in the diverse population,' according to its Web site.
Dole Food Co. owner David Murdock announced the research campus in 2005 and, with partnerships with the UNC system and Duke University, is building the campus into a world center for human disease and nutrition research. He pledged $1.5 billion to construct the campus on the site of the former Cannon Mills, which was demolished in 2006.
Kannapolis City Manager Mike Legg said attracting a federal presence at the research campus has been a priority for the city for the past two years.
"It's been on our list since then, but this is the first time it's gained any traction at all," Legg said. "There is $8 billion in the stimulus package for research and both Sens. Burr and Hagan have it on their lists, so we hope it survives through the Senate."
Research campus officials have been pursuing a federal presence since its inception. Dr. Steve Zeisel, director of the UNC Nutrition Research Institute, initially drafted a proposal for a $25 million, 125-employee research center that would focus on human nutrition.
Steve Leath, vice president for research for the UNC system and a board member of the David H. Murdock Research Institute, has also been lobbying for a USDA research center, but he said in 2008, it would need a champion in Congress to get the funding for such a thing.
Legg said the city, through its lobbyist, took that proposal as a starting point to work with. If it were to survive the congressional budget process, the center would need recurring funding, Legg said.
Former U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes tried to get funding for the research station, but was unsuccessful in his later years of service.
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