Food research halted at MSU after Trump's USAID stop work order

Yahoo

24-02-2025

This story has been updated with new information.
EAST LANSING — The funding freeze for a government agency that administers foreign aid could have critical impacts closer to home.
In a 40-year period from 1983 to 2023, Michigan State University received $190 million from USAID for its Food Security Group. The lead project of the program is the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research, Capacity, and Influence, which aims to transform food policy in countries across Africa, Asia and Central America.
Michigan is one of 13 states with universities where research has been halted in the wake of President Donald Trump's decision to freeze funding for USAID. On Jan. 24, a stop-work order was sent to all recipients of USAID grants and contracts, including the two Feed the Future initiatives at MSU.
Professor David Tschirley, director of MSU's Lab for Food Security Policy Research, Capacity and Influence, said the lasting impacts of the funding freeze haven't been clearly thought out, and the benefit of the labs to the nation and Michigan should be enough to make the federal government reconsider.
"Some of the biggest supporters of many of these labs stateside are commodity groups in the U.S.," Tschirley said. "They see the value of this work ... the people who actually work in the sector understand the value of these labs domestically."
USAID delivers billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and foreign assistance to dozens of countries. Some programs it funds have won emergency waivers. Others have launched legal challenges. But the order has caused widespread disruption and sparked concerns about the real-world consequences if USAID is largely defunded or disbanded altogether.
Tschirley said those benefits include research on growing disease-resistant crops that Michigan farmers can use. He pointed to the Michigan Bean Commission and the Michigan Soybean Committee, both of which have used some of the research MSU has collected over the years.
And the help given to foreign countries eventually comes back to the U.S., in the form of international stability, increased exports to developing countries and general goodwill.
"The most recent study on the benefits of all this kind of research for the U.S. is that for every dollar invested in these programs, $30 to $40 comes back to the U.S.," Tschirley said.
Joe Cramer, executive director of the Michigan Bean Commission, said there was "no question" that the research projects being done overseas benefited Michigan farmers.
And although he was skeptical of the research offshore at first, he said he realized that the research being done in other countries wouldn't have a negative impact on the success of the dry bean industry in the U.S., and that the development of stronger bean genetics that could survive drier climates and were resistant to more disease was a positive for everyone.
"It took me a long time to understand that we weren't developing a competitor," he said.
The dry bean industry in Michigan is in a great place, Cramer said, and there's less risk involved in farming than there was 25 years ago. He attributes part of the success of the business to the research being done by MSU and other labs across the world.
"If we can get our best minds and researchers on this, I don't really care where (the research) is being done," he said.
The Feed the Future lab received $5 million from USAID last year, Tschirley said. A little over a dozen other institutions also receive money from USAID for projects under the Feed the Future lab, including Kansas State University and the University of California, Davis.
The Feed the Future lab isn't the only research project at the university that receives funding from USAID. MSU's College of Education received $17 million last November to improve STEM education in Malawi, through the USAID Transforming Higher Education Systems project.
'As a leading global public research university, Michigan State is committed to student success and to access and equity in higher education both here on our campus and around the world,' MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz said in a November news release.
Tschirley said that although it may seem like the foreign countries are getting all of the benefit, that isn't true. Students who are educated through MSU programs like the one in Malawi may continue their education in the U.S., which is a benefit to the U.S. economy. At MSU alone, international students contribute over $200 million to the local economy, and support over 2,000 jobs in the Lansing area, an MSU report on international students showed.
The legality of Trump's orders are working their way through the court system. On Feb. 13, a federal judge extended an order blocking the firing of thousands of workers from USAID who argued the Trump administration is dismantling the foreign aid agency. On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put USAID workers on leave, Reuters reported.
On Sunday, the Trump administration said it was placing all personnel, except leaders and critical staff, on paid administrative leave and eliminating 1,600 positions in the United States.
"I regret to inform you that you are affected by a Reduction in Force action," said an email sent to one of the workers being fired that was reviewed by Reuters. Those who received the email will be let go from federal service effective April 24, the email said.
But despite the legal challenges, Tschirley said researchers have been cut off from funding.
When he was notified of the first order on Jan. 20, a pause and 90-day review on all research receiving federal funding, Tschirley said he wasn't too worried. Research activity would have been able to continue, because USAID doesn't give cash up front but instead pays back what MSU spends. However, he said he wasn't prepared for the stop work order on Jan. 24.
"Some labs had experiments in the field," he said. "So you're talking about losing millions and millions of dollars already invested in these studies that if stopped in the middle would completely go to waste. And so there was a lot of confusion, trying to get clarity about what we could and could not do."
Luckily for the researchers at MSU, Tschirley said, MSU is able to cover the basic expenses, like salaries, with existing contracts and grants.
But work might be lost.
"If you don't keep watering the plants and weeding the plants, then you're going to lose that trial," he said. "If you miss the window for a survey, if it's sensitive to season, you also lose that work."
Tschirley said he's expecting a questionnaire to come from USAID in the next couple months about his work and why it should be funded. But he said he's worried about how long the university will be able to pay the salaries of the researchers.
"The uncertainty is very, very difficult," he said. "And the longer it goes on, the more destruction there will be."
USA TODAY reporter Kim Hjelmgaard and Reuters contributed to this story. Contact Sarah Atwood at [e-mail]. Follow her on X @sarahmatwood
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Food research halted at MSU after Trump's USAID stop work order