The Feed the Future Initiative helped connect agricultural research at 17 labs — based at land grant universities throughout the U.S. — with foreign partners in an Obama-era effort to address global hunger.
Now only one of the innovation labs is receiving federal funding.
The Trump administration paused funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development in January, followed by a near-complete dismantling of the agency this spring, including the Feed the Future program.
That left the program’s agricultural researchers to depend on funding from their own universities or private donations, while some hope that Congressional members will step in.
An anonymous donation
Work at the University of Illinois’ Soybean Innovation Lab has resumed, although on a reduced scale.
Lab director Peter Goldsmith said that’s thanks to a $1 million anonymous private donation.
“They reached out back at the end of February, and they liked our story,” said Goldsmith. “They liked what we were proposing to do and they put things in position.”
Goldsmith spoke with several media outlets when the funding was paused last winter. The lab had been federally funded through 2027 as part of the Feed the Future program.
Now, instead of government-funded projects in several countries, the donation will pay for a year’s work on adapting soybean farming and processing techniques to the hot, low-elevation environment in the east African nation of Malawi.
Goldsmith said the project is a good choice considering their reduced funding.
“So all the various features are in miniature, and that was intentional,” said Goldsmith. “We thought that would be helpful to maximize the potential that we would be able to find additional funding in the future.”
The donation allowed the lab to hire back about eight of its approximately 30 employees. Goldsmith said he is now focused on finding more funding to keep the Soybean Innovation Lab going in future years.
“I don’t think federal funding will be forthcoming,” he said. “And the Soybean Innovation Lab needs to find — as well as the other labs — we need to focus on finding other sources of research dollars.”
‘Past the political moment’
At Michigan State University, the Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research, Capacity and Influence focused on enhancing local policy research organizations’ ability to conduct high-quality research and better influence policy.
“We continue to do some of that work, just none of it now is with USAID funding, and therefore it's at a substantially reduced scale,” said lab director David Tschirley.
Tschirley, who also served as chair of the Council of the Innovation Labs, said he suspects that’s true at many of the universities that housed Feed the Future labs.
“The loss of the lab was a very big deal for everyone,” he said, “but it didn't entirely stop this general kind of work, at least at some of the universities.”
There’s continued interest in international agricultural research among members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, according to Tschirley. But he knows the longer the labs go without federal funding, the harder it will be to build back.
“We have to get past the political moment, and we have to stay visible until we get past that political moment,” he said.
One innovation lab left standing
At Kansas State University, the Climate Resilient Cereal Innovation Lab is continuing its research after a short work stoppage this winter.
It’s the only Feed the Future lab that continues to get federal funding.
Interim lab director Timothy Dalton said he doesn’t know why funding for the Cereal Innovation Lab has been continued — but he believes the question should be looked at in another way.
“Why were all the other labs terminated?” he asked, “When they're doing such critically important work as we are doing, in order to combat global food insecurity and to generate scientific advances that can be harnessed by the U.S. agricultural community?”
Founded in 2023, the center’s work focuses on further developing cereal crops such as wheat, rice, sorghum and pearl millet to withstand harsh growing conditions. Dalton said crops grown in Ethiopia, Senegal and Bangladesh provide “natural laboratories,” and their findings provide useful applications in the U.S.
“I've demonstrated and found billions of dollars for U.S. farmers in the sorghum industry from working on problems in Haiti and in southern Africa,” he said. “And so, without robust investment in these programs, I think it's fair to say that we're kneecapping some of our farmers on their ability to adapt to these situations in the future.”
Dalton said long-term investment in agricultural research is critical to meeting the world’s future food needs. He pointed to a report released by Virginia Tech University last year that found agricultural product productivity grew by only 0.7% around the world over a 10-year period. The rate will now need to reach about 1.9% in order to meet food needs by 2050, the report found.
“I think it doesn't take too much imagination, if we don't achieve that goal, what the potential implications might be,” Dalton said, “not only for food and hunger, but also just for national security issues.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
