Donald Trump’s cuts to USAID expose world’s hungriest to famine
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been largely dismantled by president Trump's flood of executive orders in his first 100 days. Picture: Michel Lunanga/Getty Images
The global Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) has gone offline, leaving some of the world's most vulnerable people unprotected, due to the Trump administration's huge cuts in federal agency funding.
FEWS monitored 30 countries across Africa, Central America, the Caribbean and South Asia, collecting data on weather patterns, agricultural production, market prices and conflict trends, to predict food crises before they escalate into full-blown famine.
It was part of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has been largely dismantled by the President's flood of executive orders in his first 100 days. The disappearance of FEWS has left humanitarian relief organisations short of guidance on when, where and how to deploy aid.
In 1984, the Reagan administration and the National Security Council were shocked by the images of Ethiopian children dying in a famine. It resulted in an estimated one million deaths, and President Ronald Reagan took a personal interest, followed by congressional leaders starting the process to set up FEWS.
It proved its worth, for example, being credited with preventing another famine in Ethiopia in 2016. Now, researchers warn that Trump's funding cuts have greatly affected the world of agriculture, food, and famine.
"The reality in science is changing almost by the day due to US government policies," according to a statement by Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, ranked No 1 in the world for agriculture and forestry.
Amid requests from US scientists looking for new jobs, professors at Wageningen are worrying about the availability of data they use from US agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and of data from American satellites.
Gert-Jan Nabuurs, professor of European Forests at Wageningen, said:
Wageningen scientists noted that FEWS, and its analyses to predict famine, "went down overnight".
Professor Guido van der Werf of the Department of Meteorology and Air Quality at Wageningen, said: "There is a lot going on. You notice that academic freedom is being restricted, and that is terrifying. Ignoring scientific information that does not fit into one’s worldview is of all times, but because of this official policy, we are going back to the days of quackery."
Professor of Meteorology and Air Quality at Wageningen, Jordi Vila, said: "Currently, NOAA is facing significant redundancies. Critical services are at risk due to reduced manpower. Think of the prediction of extreme weather, such as tornadoes.
"Entire lines of research are being abruptly discontinued, hampering efforts to monitor climate change and our understanding. Rebuilding these research teams would require years of work".
He warned of a particularly concerning setback, given the accelerating pace of climate change. Professor Nabuurs was concerned about the effect on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on which governments rely for scientific information to develop climate policies.
He said: "The latest news is that the US has already withdrawn funding for one report." He said nothing will come of the upcoming climate summit in Brazil, COP30, without the US, one of the big emitters, now at odds with China, the other big emitter.
Along with scientists, thousands of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees have been fired. But an independent federal board ordered the USDA to temporarily reinstate close to 6,000 employees fired since February 13, finding reasonable grounds to believe the agency illegally fired probationary employees.
In particular, the USDA said their Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and it had to rescind some dismissal letters to these workers. "We’re looking to hear from federal government workers who have been laid off. If you’re willing to talk with us, please email us," was the message to some fired employees.
The error was one of many, as the mass firings of federal workers was carried out by tech billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, which is heavily staffed by people without government experience. Others fired in error included nuclear safety employees.
About 25% of employees in an office doing avian flu tests were fired and many of them must be re-hired for the Trump administration's $1 billion plan to stop bird flu spreading. This is a hot inflation-linked political issue for Trump, because egg prices rose to record levels, linked to the loss of 166 million birds in flu-infected flocks.
There are also reports of dismissals causing partial shutdown of research facilities involved in the fight against bird flu, which has spread beyond poultry and into dairy herds in more than a dozen states.
The Agricultural Research Service (ARS), which is the USDA’s chief in-house research agency with more than 90 research units and laboratories spanning 42 states, had some 800 employees laid off, as food and agriculture were hit hard by the chaotic firings, or targeting for layoffs, of at least 121,000 workers in more than 30 federal agencies, in the three months since President Trump’s second term began.
Included was the systematic dismantling of USAID, the final blow of which was closing 21 USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Labs, tasked with specialised research on agricultural challenges that disrupt the global food supply.
It is feared that agricultural research funding and staff cuts will cut off access for farmers in the USA to innovations that improve yields, resilience, and profitability.
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