Penn State University says the proposed elimination of federal grant programs threatens 200 faculty positions and graduate fellowship slots and would deal a severe blow to agricultural research and outreach efforts.

If the changes President Bush proposed are included in the 2006 budget, Penn State's respected College of Agricultural Sciences "will not look like it's looked in the past," said Bruce McPheron, associate dean for research and director of the university's Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station.

Research at other land-grant schools forming the backbone of the agricultural research system also would be disrupted, McPheron said.

The Bush administration has proposed cutting the Hatch and McIntire-Stennis programs by 50 percent for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 and eliminating them for 2007. The Hatch program has funded agricultural research at land-grant universities since 1887, while McIntire-Stennis is the schools' primary source of federal funds for forestry research, McPheron said.

The administration also has proposed eliminating the Animal Health and Disease research program for 2006, McPheron said.

"This is a pretty significant hit," he said.

In all, schools received $205 million from the programs this year.

The budget proposal wouldn't do away with the money but change the way it's distributed. Money now awarded to Penn State and other schools by formula would be shifted to new and existing competitive grant programs.

"However useful and well meaning these efforts may be, they cannot replace the existing programs that ensure a reliable level of base funding for each and every land-grant university," Daney Jackson, director of Penn State Cooperative Extension and associate vice president for outreach, said in an e-mail to university staff members and supporters.

Together, the formula programs provide Penn State with about $6 million a year, 8 percent of the university's money for agricultural research. In his e-mail, Jackson said as many as 200 faculty and graduate positions would be threatened.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defended the proposed changes, saying competitive grant programs would help to attract the highest-caliber research talent to critical issues facing agriculture today. Department spokesman Ed Loyd said the changes also would help to ensure that money is spent on research, not used to cover administrative expenses.

The changes were lauded by Alan Kelly, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, who said schools like Penn have been excluded from Hatch and McIntire-Stennis funding.

Hatch money is available to land-grant institutions, and McIntire-Stennis money also has a limited distribution, Loyd said.

Kelly said an expansion of competitive grant programs, drawing more schools into the process, is a more reasonable framework for agricultural research. But Penn State and other land-grant schools said the changes would disrupt a successful research network.

Auburn University in Alabama is among those sounding an alarm. At risk is $4.5 million a year, about 15 percent of the school's agricultural research money, said Lane Sauser, chief financial officer for the College of Agriculture and Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station.

Sauser said about 75 graduate fellowships would be cut. Research programs on campus also would be cut, she said, and the university's satellite research centers around the state would be affected.

"This would probably push us to have to make some reductions there," she said.

McPheron and Sauser said their schools have used the Hatch, McIntire-Stennis and Animal Health funds for long-term research on issues important to their states and to respond to emergencies in the industry.

In the late 1990s, McPheron said, a virus never before seen in North America threatened the peach crop in Adams and Cumberland counties and theoretically posed a danger to Georgia's peach industry. The university, drawing on formula research money, formed a team to contain the threat.

McPheron and Sauser said a move to competitive grants would rob agricultural schools of stability, strategic planning and flexibility, forcing them to devote resources to short-term, highly focused research projects selected by the U.S. government.

Sauser said research priorities are better set at the state and local levels. Also, there's no guarantee Penn State, Auburn or any other school would get as much competitive grant money as they do formula funds.

While schools have derided the proposed changes, Bush's plan actually would increase the amount of research money in an otherwise austere budget, Loyd said. By adding to one competitive grant and creating another, he said, an additional $145 million would be available for research next year.

Penn State and Auburn already receive some competitive grant funding. But Sauser said that money, for one-, three-, or five-year projects, is best used to supplement long-term research.

McPheron said funding changes would have a trickle-down effect on Cooperative Extension programs that provide assistance to farmers. He said the information Penn State provides farmers is based on research programs.