Dear Friends,
I want to share some significant decisions made by the IR-4 Project Management Committee (PMC) at our recent meeting, October 8-10, in Kansas City, MO. These decisions, announced during last week’s Town Hall meeting, will have a considerable impact on IR-4’s Integrated Solutions Platform (IS) and Food Crop Program research. These decisions were made to address IR-4’s analytical laboratory backlog and rebuild our core program capacity during times of funding uncertainty. While these decisions may be disappointing to our stakeholders, they have been made in the spirit of stewarding our mission and providing a high level of service to the specialty crop community moving forward.
Decisions
- Funding for IS research priorities established at the 2024 Food Use Workshop in Milwaukee will be reduced by $100,000 ($111,100 when including indirect costs). This will leave approximately $400,000 for research.IR-4’s Regional Field Coordinators and Biologists, with input from the PMC, will decide how to implement these cuts. Options include: the elimination of entire IS research projects; strategic removal of certain tested product(s) in IS research projects; or the reduction of funding across IS projects. Priority will be given to maintaining biopesticide treatments or IS research projects that focus on organic production needs. Other considerations include IS research projects that are already being funded by other sources (e.g., Specialty Crop Research Initiative, AFRI, etc.).IR-4 can continue IS research projects that are fully funded/sponsored by outside funds (e.g., California Department of Food and Agriculture, commodity groups, etc.).The $100,000 recovered from 2026 IS research will be redirected to the IR-4 Analytical Laboratories at the University of Florida and the University of California-Davis. These funds will be used to build capacity and replace outdated analytical instruments necessary to address the ongoing laboratory backlog.
- The IS research priorities established at IR-4’s 2025 Food Workshop in Denver, CO, will be indefinitely paused. Assuming Congress maintains IR-4 funding at existing levels ($15 million), IR-4’s two analytical laboratories will be provided $225,000 each to hire new staff to handle their increased workload.The remaining funds recovered from the IS research pause ($150,000) will be utilized to conduct product performance testing. IS research projects fully funded/sponsored by funds outside of IR-4 can continue as planned.When new monies for IR-4 are secured, IS research will resume with a primary focus on testing biopesticides and emerging products, and/or projects focusing on organic production systems.
- The PMC has established a moratorium on adding new residue projects to the 2026 food crop program to replace those dropped for various reasons. This moratorium does not include new research on projects previously begun and now requiring additional data (aka “Red A” projects).Any funds not utilized to add new studies will be reinvested in funding contract lab analysis to lessen the burden on the IR-4 laboratories.
Why such drastic decisions?
The IR-4 Project Management Committee recognizes that these decisions deeply impact stakeholders involved in IR-4’s Integrated Solutions Platform. Significant effort was expended to draft IS research protocols for 2026. Furthermore, there are sizable expeditions for identifying solutions. We also know these priorities are very important to those who advocated for them, and we are not giving up on serving those needs. These decisions were not taken lightly.
The reasoning behind the decisions is based on IR-4’s ability to produce data promptly in the core Food Crop Program’s Residue Platform. To provide brief context, IR-4 has established a service standard that residue sample analysis and reporting of the results are completed within 12 months of the laboratory receiving the last samples in the study. Once the 12-month service standard time is exceeded, the study is classified as “Backlog.”
Over the last four years, the number of studies in the Backlog has progressively worsened due to a “perfect storm” of events: complex residue analysis with new chemicals; addressing storage stability of chemicals in crops; laboratory personnel challenges; lab building renovations; reduced capacity; and limited investment in laboratories to address equipment and staff needs.
The PMC believes that redirecting research resources as outlined above will rebuild the ability of IR-4’s analytical laboratories to promptly analyze residue samples. While this part of IR-4’s operations is harder for stakeholders to see, our labs are vital to our mission of meeting growers’ needs for chemical crop protection products.
Summary
IR-4 continues to recognize the value of Integrated Solutions research to solve some of the most difficult and complex pest management issues in specialty crops. With continued funding challenges and urgent resource needs in the analytical laboratories, the decision to redeploy resources to maintain core programs outweighed the potential offered by short-term Integrated Solutions work. When new funds are available, IR-4 will move to reinstitute some of the existing IS research priorities.
Please contact me (Jerry Baron, jbaron@ncsu.edu) if you have any questions or need additional information. Thank you for understanding. We are confident these tough choices will benefit our team and stakeholders.
Sincerely,
Jerry Baron
Executive Director, The IR-4 Project
