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Legislation be authorizing and then appropriating full funding of the Agriculture & Food Research Initiatives ( AFRI ), the USDA ’ s flagship competitive research program for the agricultural sciences . AFRI is the largest federal program providing competitive grants for fundamental research , applied research , extension , and education in food and agriculture – and is a critical source of funding for universities , government agencies , and private companies . Established as part of the National Institute of Food & Agriculture in the 2008 Farm Bill , it was most recently reauthorized in the 2018 Farm Bill . Since 2008 , it has funded over 5000 project applications and distributed more than $ 3 billion .
Another path is updating Dietary Reference Intakes ( DRIs ). DRIs are the standard for nutrient recommendations and are essential to nutrition policy , functioning as the scientific background to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and federal feeding programs . They are a set of quantitative nutrient reference values used to plan and assess nutrient intake of a country ’ s population
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