During the Irish Potato Famine, a million people starved and another million left the country after disease decimated the potato crop everyone depended on. Though the suffering had many causes, the shock would not have been so brutal if Ireland’s potatoes were not genetically identical for disease to spread so viciously.
Seed banks were created to prevent such famines. Fundamentally, they are seed variety repositories that are used for germplasm research, especially during a crisis. Ours, the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS), was used to stop a devastating corn blight that struck the U.S. in 1970, destroying more food and feed calories than even the Potato Famine long ago. Outside of generational blights, more common extreme weather or pest infestations can also cause crop failure.
Scientists leverage seed banks to provide the genetic material to make crops more resilient to these events. Importantly, researchers can access our seed bank system free of charge, creating a sort of “Open AI” model but for germplasm.
Unfortunately, DOGE cuts to our seed bank system are putting our nation’s food security at risk and exacerbating trends that threaten the “openness” of plant breeding research. This could lead to weak responses to future crop failures and greater dependence on tightly controlled crop varieties.
Before DOGE, the NPGS had 300 scientists across its 22 stations nationwide. They maintained more than 600,000 genetic lines of over 200 crop species and distributed around 200,000 samples of plant germplasm a year.
Their work supports the bedrock of the entire U.S. agricultural system. However, their annual budget of $38 million is insufficient to address severe backlogs in core functions. For example, pathogen testing and cleanup at NPGS’s cool-season crop station in Pullman, Washington, is 104 years behind schedule. By order of the 2018 farm bill, the seed bank system created a ten-year proposal to remedy these and other backlogs. Overall, they suggested it needs almost 200 more scientists and $600 million over 10 years to right the ship.
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Instead, DOGE terminated 30 scientists, froze hirings for 10 vacancies, and extended deferred resignations to 10 additional scientists. At some stations, this has halted distribution of breeding materials altogether. Although some staff have been reinstated, anything beyond maintaining current inventory has become extremely difficult.
These log jams threaten the public because it’ll lessen the ability for researchers to combat rises in agricultural diseases and pests, including those worsened by climate change and pesticide immunity.
Trends in public and private germplasm research will make things worse. Private sector research is often done in conjunction with the NPGS but with seeds that these companies control through intellectual property. It is also likely to be directed at downstream development of existing commodity breeds and funded by royalties and seed sales, a process that disincentivizes new breed creation or research into less profitable crops.
Conversely, public research relies on breeding materials freely accessed through the NPGS and focuses mainly on topics like improving sustainability, climate resiliency, plant varieties, and minor or less lucrative crops.
Private germplasm is also largely done at a few massive foreign conglomerates which dominate global seed and pesticide markets. For instance, Germany’s Bayer is the largest seed company and the second-largest pesticide company in the world. Ninety percent of U.S. corn acreage is planted with Bayer-patented traits. Much of their research is done in response to a “pesticide treadmill,” where weeds and pests become immune to pesticides, requiring the development of seeds that are responsive to novel and more potent chemicals.
Rather than breeding for immunity, it is more lucrative to breed for pesticide responsiveness when you make your seeds only respond to your pesticides. Despite this, industry still leans on the NPGS for genetic materials that stimulate their bioresearch.
The organic industry is particularly reliant on seed banks. The Organic Seed Alliance’s 2022 State of Organic Seed report lists the NPGS as critical to organic breeding. Since organic farmers cannot use powerful synthetic pesticides, there is added emphasis on breeding seeds for disease and pest resistance. Without access to seed varieties via the seed bank, new organic plant breeding research becomes severely undermined and could cripple the organic industry valued at $65 billion.
Ultimately, the NPGS is the foundation of the entire food system. If that foundation falters, the broader food system may follow. Rather than being cut by DOGE, the NPGS needs stronger support because it is functionally paralyzed at the moment. The longer we wait, the more public and private research gets hampered, making us less capable of addressing critical needs in an ever-changing environment.
Vincent Trometter is a policy fellow at the Organic Farming Research Foundation. Cathleen McCluskey is policy and advocacy director for Organic Seed Alliance.