CENTER FUNDING HELD UP

The Missouri Agriculture Department has held up $250,000 in funding for the Delta Research Center because of questions as to how the money would be spent.

The research center at Portageville wants to buy a combine, a tractor, irrigation equipment and pickup trucks with the money.

But Kyle Vickers, deputy director of the agriculture department, said the Missouri General Assembly appropriated the money for contractual services for basic crop research.

State Sen. Jerry Howard, D-Dexter, helped get the added research money for the center in the budget, which was approved by lawmakers last year.

Howard said he learned in December that the department hadn't released the money.

Howard said the items submitted by center Superintendent Jake Fisher don't meet the conditions set out in the budget approved by the General Assembly.

"A pickup truck is not research on a row crop," said Howard.

Bud the center's advisory board chairman, David Haggard of Kennett, said the equipment is needed for rice-farming research.

"If they hold that money out, they limit our ability to do anything on the rice farm," he said.

The rice farm is about 35 miles from the research facility at Portageville.

Howard, Vickers and center officials expressed hope that the funding issue will be resolved.

"I think it will be worked out soon," Vickers said.