According to the Denver Post, Freund said there are things only the government can do well, and the advancement of animal science, vital to cattle breeders, is one of them.

"There's a lot of things that need to be cut, but I hope they're fair in looking at the good our state research universities do for agriculture and the economy."

When 2012 ended without agreement on a new farm bill, legislators extended the provisions of the 2008 bill until September.

The previous farm bill funded 15 programs. Food stamps account for 67 percent of the funding; crop subsidiest make up 15 percent; soil conservation 9 percent; and crop insurance 8 percent.

A farm bill passed by the Senate last year included $23 billion in cuts over 10 years. House Republicans wanted $35 billion in cuts.

The Denver Post article said that cuts of any size could ripple through Colorado's agriculture economy, including many of the state's federal research labs and universities, and pointed out that Colorado has been ranked 21st among the states that benefited from the 2008 farm bill.

Cuts in federal money for research will slice into innovation that powers the modern economy, said Bill Farland, who is vice president of research at Colorado State University and a chairman of CO-LABS, the consortium of the state's federally funded laboratories.

Those 24 laboratories generated an estimated $1.5 billion in the state economy in 2010, including 7,964 direct jobs and 8,521 indirect jobs, according to an economic-impact study by the organization.

A retired CSU lab director, however, told the Denver Post that it's time to think more broadly than public funding.

"It could be that cattle ranchers get together and fund a veterinary-extension position," he said. "You have to go to the end user and not stand there with your hand out waiting for the government to help you." 

—From the Denver Post (Click here to read the full article.)