While the U.S. produces $132 billion worth of livestock and poultry each year, only .04 percent ($32.15 million) of the $88 billion USDA budget in fiscal year 2007 went to competitive grants for research involving agriculturally important animals. By contrast, the Department of Health and Human Services apportioned 4.1 percent ($29.5 billion) of its $716 billion FYo8 budget to the National Institutes of Health,  of which 80 percent supported extramural research. This illustrates a huge disparity in total budget available for research grants focused on animal agriculture, according to an article entitled Farm Animal Research in Crisis published on May 24 in Science magazine. An abstract can be viewed at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/324/5926/468.