Introduction of the Aanapisi Opportunity Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the AANAPISI Opportunity Act. This legislation seeks to ensure that the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides research and career opportunities to students at all Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) by creating grant programs for the only MSI without any USDA support: Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).
The AANAPISI Opportunity Act is modeled after several already existing competitive grant programs for MSIs in USDA. Specifically, the bill establishes grants to support Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)-centered agricultural research and scholarships to support agricultural education and career development. Additional funding will be given to AANAPISI students through a 50 percent institutional matching requirement. For low-resourced AANAPISIs who might not be able to match, like Northern Marianas College in my district, USDA may provide a waiver to help keep them in consideration for grant awards.
In addition to enhancing the potential of American agriculture, this bill will have generational impact by investing in the AAPI agricultural pipeline. USDA's 2017 Census of Agriculture identified 25,310 Asian producers in the United States, most of whom were younger and more likely to have recently started farming than U.S. producers overall.
Although 25.310 accounts for only 0.7 percent of the country's farmers and 2 percent of total U.S. agricultural sales, this bill would bolster the number of skilled AAPIs that contribute to our nation's agricultural workforce and output. A 2019 Journal of Research in Technical Careers article found that the highest-rated student retention strategies for underrepresented students pursuing agricultural careers were ``academic support [and] giving students practical work experiences in their intended major.''
U.S. agricultural priorities can only be met when all producers are given opportunities to compete and succeed, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Now it is time for Congress to fully commit to investing equitably in one of the nation's most indispensable industries.
I thank my colleagues who joined me in introducing this important, bipartisan legislation--Mr. Case, Ms Chu, Mr. Moylan, Ms. Radewagen, and Ms. Tokuda.
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