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Lab closures affect seed, equipment tech, and market

development

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Stop-work orders issued after Trump froze foreign aid,

affecting

17 labs

By Leah Douglas, P.J. Huffstutter and Tom Polansek

Feb 12 (Reuters) - The Trump administration's

dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development has

halted work at a network of farm research laboratories at land

grant universities in 13 states, according to six lab directors.

The lab closures are another hit to U.S. agriculture from

President Donald Trump's overhaul of the federal government, by

blocking research work designed to advance seed and equipment

technology and develop markets abroad for U.S. commodities.

Farmers have already seen disruptions to government food

purchases for aid, and to agricultural grant and loan programs.

Land-grant universities were founded on land given to states

by the federal government.

"For U.S. farmers, this is not good," said Peter Goldsmith,

who leads the University of Illinois' Soybean Innovation Lab,

one of the affected labs.

The State Department did not respond to a request for

comment.

The network of 17 laboratories was funded by USAID through a

program called Feed the Future Innovation Labs, and pursued

research in partnership with countries such as Malawi, Tanzania,

Bangladesh, and Rwanda, the lab directors said.

Their research helps U.S. farmers because programs conducted

overseas can develop production practices that may be useful in

the U.S. or provide advance warning of pests, directors said.

"It really reduces our capacity to help farmers fight pests

and diseases and help American farmers prevent incursions," said

David Hughes, director of the USAID Innovation Lab on Current

and Emerging Threats to Crops at Penn State University.

One study that has been halted was working to control a

viral disease spread by an aphid that was hurting banana crops

in Tanzania, Hughes said.

David Tschirley, who runs an agency-funded lab at Michigan

State University and is chair of the Feed the Future Innovation

Lab Council, which represents the lab network, said about 300

people are employed by the labs, and they have as many as 4,000

collaborators abroad.

"It presents an American face to the world that is a very

appreciated face," he said, adding that such work benefits

national security.

STOP-WORK ORDERS

All 17 labs received stop-work orders at the end of January

after Trump froze most foreign aid, and have not received

additional guidance or responses to queries from the State

Department, which oversees USAID, Tschirley said. Some labs are

petitioning their host universities to cover some costs, with

mixed success, the lab directors said.

Michigan State is allowing Tschirley's lab to keep employees

based on the expectation USAID will eventually approve the

costs, he said.

Goldsmith said he laid off all 30 staff at his lab last

week, and plans to close it on April 15. He said his lab has

provided technical assistance to farmers planting soy in African

countries and to companies building soy-processing plants.

Some of that lab's partners have included agribusiness

companies Bayer, Corteva ( CTVA ), BASF,

and Archer-Daniels-Midland ( ADM ), according to a 2020 report

on the lab's website.

Bayer, one of the world's biggest producers of crop seeds

and chemicals, said it was assessing the funding halt. The other

companies declined to comment or did not respond to questions.

Some of Trump's other actions to reshape government have

also affected U.S. farmers. Tens of millions of dollars of U.S.

commodity purchases, for example, were temporarily halted after

the Trump administration's January 24 order freezing most

foreign aid.

Farmers across the country also say they are not receiving

payments from a range of federal farm programs under Trump's

directive to freeze federal loans and grants, which has been

blocked in court.