When the Feed the Future Livestock Systems Innovation Lab at the University of Florida launched in 2015, it was the only one in the country focused on animals and livestock, conducting research projects primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. The lab was supported largely by a $59 million award from the now mostly dismantled United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
On Jan. 24, the Trump administration ordered a 90-day freeze to foreign assistance programs along with termination of most USAID-funded grants and contracts, which immediately impacted active Livestock Systems Innovation Lab projects in Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Haiti.
“All those projects are now suspended,” says Geoffrey E. Dahl, Ph.D., director of the lab. “We can’t pay staff or maintain infrastructure.”
Among the shuttered Feed the Future projects was one investigating the impact of increased essential nutrients from animal source foods on fetal development and maternal health.
“We had 400 [pregnant] women enrolled, each receiving two eggs a day, with a lot of prenatal oversight,” Dahl says.
Designed to improve maternal and infant health outcomes, the project is one among hundreds of paused food and ag-based research initiatives at 75 universities in 40 states, according to data from a recently furloughed USAID contractor.
Dahl says Feed the Future’s Tanzania and Ghana-based research to develop a Newcastle disease-resistant chicken has also ground to a halt.
“We already completed a 10-year selection of chickens that had resistance to the disease, but now those lines of chickens are not being fed,” he says. “All told, we have 30 projects on complete pause right now.”
Future of Ag Research Lies in the Balance
With nearly half a billion in ag research funding at stake, according to data from former USAID contractor Jordan Schermerhorn, labs around the country are facing personnel layoffs, at best, and shutdown of hundreds of research projects, at worst.
Florida’s Livestock Systems Innovation Lab received most of its funding from USAID, according to Dahl. While the university also receives support from the Gates Foundation, the latter can’t make up the difference.
“Right now [we’re] backstopping the staff because we still have work to do up until the time of the stop work order [on April 15],” Dahl says, “but the university can’t maintain the staff forever.”
Peter Goldsmith, Ph.D, director of the Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is facing similar challenges.
“Our mandate [as a lab] was to establish the foundation for the soybean market in sub-Saharan Africa,” he explains, looking at how to improve yield, seed, supply and mechanization.
SIL had a $30 million award from USAID funded through 2027.
“That money stopped on Jan. 27 at all 19 labs [nationwide]. Everyone on that contract is out of job now.”
Among impacted labs is one overseen by Kerry Clark, Ph.D., director of International Programs for the College Agriculture at the University of Missouri.
“Our research has focused on improving soybean production and use in Africa, but there have been benefits to U.S. farmers,” she explains, pointing out researchers at the university have been working to develop stronger soybean lines with better disease resistance by improving soybean genetics. “Disease could wipe out [U.S. soybean varieties] because there’s not a lot of genetic diversity.”
In her team’s field research on soybeans in Africa, rust already represents a major threat.
“It’s harder to do that research in the U.S. because we don’t want [the disease] here,” Clark explains. “Fungicides are expensive, so developing genetic resistance is important.”
Clark says SIL discovers new diseases in Africa that aren’t in the U.S. yet, such as red leaf blotch.
“This helps protect U.S. farmers as well as African farmers,” she explains. “USAID programs are required by law to have a benefit to U.S. farmers.”
Economic Impacts Extend Beyond Farmers
At present, worries about future pest outbreaks and opening of new markets have become secondary to U.S. producers concerned about maintaining the markets they already have.
“There’s a wait and see on [the research] side,” says Peter Laudeman director of trade policy for U.S. Wheat Associates. “We’ve been focused in the near term on the Food for Peace program.”
In mid-February, Republican Representative Tracey Mann of Kansas introduced H.R. 1207, which, if passed, would transfer the functions of USAID’s Food for Peace to USDA. While the bill remains in committee, Laudeman says he’s optimistic about it moving forward.
“I think it’s really got solid momentum and broad support from key Congressional Republicans,” he says.
In the short term, Laudeman adds any grain already tendered to USAID and in the queue is moving to its destination. However, according to a still active USAID senior humanitarian advisor, who oversees more than $1 billion in U.S. government global food assistance, the agency remains in financial lockdown and is unable to process or distribute shipments.
Members of U.S. Wheat and the National Association of Wheat Growers have expressed support for moving Food for Peace from USAID to USDA.
“If USDA can forecast [humanitarian food needs] better that would be great. Forecasting was hard with USAID,” Laudeman says. “We understand that humanitarian aid can be unpredictable, but in recent years, they haven’t even provided a rough forecast.”
While USAID funds a Famine Early Warning System Network that provides the public with a six-month forward outlook of emergency food assistance needs on a monthly basis (the site is currently down in accordance with new USAID orders), Laudeman says USAID does not translate that data into notices to the agriculture sector for the types of food, volumes and locations they intend to program for a given year.
USAID spent about $5 billion in food assistance globally in fiscal year 2023/24, with roughly $2 billion (or 41%) of that going to purchase and program U.S. commodities. To support that emergency assistance, the agency purchased 648,000 metric tons of commodities, worth almost $481 million, from U.S. producers in FY 2024. “The previous year was higher, closer to 1.1 million metric tons.
The $2 billion in U.S. commodity food assistance includes the cost to purchase commodities and move them overseas, he adds: “roughly 30% of that is direct commodity cost that went to farmers.”
The senior adviser also notes USDA (which purchases commodities for USAID) tracks the benefits of exports on the American economy, including payments for warehousing, port facilities and transportation.
“For every $1 that goes to purchasing a commodity, another $1 goes into the U.S. economy,” he says, and every billion dollars USAID invests in procuring American commodities translates into 6,338 American jobs. Some of those jobs are with USAID, many of which have now been eliminated.
When asked about H.R. 1207’s proposal to move USAID’s Food for Peace program to USDA, the adviser says, “I don’t care what agency it goes through. My first priority would be that our assistance continues to reach families facing hunger and famine. USDA has procurement capacity — they already do that for us. What you lose are humanitarian-related skill sets. We have a global footprint of staff who know where food needs to go in their countries.”
As of late February, the senior adviser says USAID partners such as Catholic Relief Services and International Rescue Committee are facing massive staff layoffs and financial cuts of up to 50%.
“All our partners are scaling down activities because they have no funds to continue,” he explains. “Despite humanitarian waivers, finance systems have been locked for anything that USAID has been paying for.
“There is something about America’s traditional values and image abroad, which is in the process of being lost,” he adds. “For ages, Americans have understood that with great power and resources comes great responsibility.”
Researchers Point to Interdependency of Global Markets
U.S. Wheat’s Laudeman says his members are happy for the short term and hopeful about H.R. 1207.
“However, no one is going to say this is as easy as turning a switch off and turning it back on again,” Laudeman says.
Goldsmith at SIL says he hopes industry partners and legislators will give the research programs around the nation that no longer have funding some review.
“These are cherished, highly productive mechanisms based in land-grant universities in 17 states doing good market development work,” he explains. “SIL isn’t the only game in town, but it’s the biggest, operating in 31 countries.”
It also has a huge private-sector network devoted to developing new markets that now won’t develop, he adds: “The U.S. farmer is going to be at a disadvantage.”
Dahl agrees: “Having been in agriculture my whole life, I know there is a linkage not fully appreciated between what we do here in the U.S. and what we’re doing elsewhere. We need to look at improving productivity in these countries, getting them feedstuffs, which may be supplied by U.S. farmers, and technical support provided by U.S. manufacturers.”
But looking past the economic benefits of providing research and food aid abroad, Dahl is worried about long-term impacts on U.S. agriculture, food security and immigration.
“We will have less of a chance to observe disease outbreaks that may end up here from other places,” he explains. “Without our input, you’ll see a continued decline in the ability of some of these places to feed themselves. Hunger is a great motivator to move.”
Dahl believes the better job the U.S. does of helping people improve their own productivity, the less likely they will try to emigrate.
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