The Department of State continues to see the Feed the Future program as “invaluable,” even though many of the labs are sitting idle following a stop-work order and grant terminations . However, the administration could restart the programs as soon as this year, Agri-Pulse is told.
“The U.S. government’s partnership with American universities on agricultural research to facilitate the betterment of lives around the world is invaluable,” a State Department spokesperson says. “The Department of State looks forward to both continuing and reestablishing relationships with key U.S. universities on Feed the Future this year.”
More than a dozen innovation labs under the Feed the Future initiative have been in limbo since the administration froze foreign assistance earlier this year.
Program funding had also been in jeopardy when the administration sought to codify a slate of Department of Government Efficiency Spending cuts in a rescissions package this summer. The funds received a late carveout from a package that Congress passed and was signed into law in July after senators worked with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to scale back the effort.
The funding also emerged unscathed from so-called “pocket rescissions” in August after the package nixed some previous years’ development assistance appropriations but left this fiscal year’s funding intact.
As part of USAID’s merger with the State Department, some of its development assistance work was brought under the department’s Office of Global Food Security. But the labs have not been given the go-ahead to return to work.
Just one lab was spared from the administration’s stop-work order – a lab working on climate-resilient grains at Kansas State University. At least one other lab received a philanthropic gift to continue its work, according to a person involved in the ag research community granted anonymity to speak frankly about the funding landscape.
The majority of the labs, however, have been stuck in limbo, as the funding remains but the administration has not indicated how and whether it will be spent.
Whether the labs can be easily brought up and running again depends on the nature of the work and the lab’s structure, the person involved in ag research warned.
If the universities had employed outside workers with the funding, they likely let them go when the money dried up and the stop-work order was issued. But if university employees worked in the labs, they may still be attached to the institutions and could return to the research, the person said.
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Labs undertaking research involving significant capital expenses on crops, greenhouses or livestock may be more challenging to get back up and running than some of the more academic labs – like the policy lab at Michigan State University or the nutrition systems lab at Tufts University, for example.
A former senior USAID official told Agri-Pulse that he is pushing the State Department to expand its agricultural expertise to manage the funding, after many of the agricultural specialists were let go as part of USAID's closure and not brought across to the State Department.
“They didn't keep a single person who is an agriculturalist,” the former official lamented. Like others involved in USAID’s agricultural work, the USAID official saw their job terminated in July.
Beyond 2025?
Spats over government funding for the next fiscal year abound in Congress, with lawmakers looking at another short-term funding bill to give appropriations discussions more time.
But Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., is among those pushing to keep funding for the innovation labs in whatever appropriations bill comes to the Senate floor. He told Agri-Pulse he believes such an effort would receive bipartisan support.
Logo for the Feed the Future initiative (State Department image)A report from House Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., on FY26 spending proposals for national security, the State Department and related programs also included $72 million for Feed the Future innovation labs – the same figure Congress allocated the previous year.
Even with the challenges, the fact that funding has limped through two rescissions packages without getting the axe is cause for optimism, the ag research community member argued, and illustrative of the support the program enjoys on Capitol Hill.
Senators’ success in securing a carveout for the innovation labs in July’s rescissions package, they said, demonstrates that food security remains a “sacred cow” among GOP lawmakers’ global development priorities.
“It's a very short, very clear list of priorities,” the person said.
Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith also pressed Vought for reassurances that an innovation lab for fish in her state wouldn’t be scrapped, when he appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee in June.
Vought told Hyde-Smith in June that the administration had no intention of scrapping funding for such a “successful” program.
