Trump administration cuts threaten UW-Madison ag studies, state farmers

Nearly 80% of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences’ research budget is federal funding

by

Wisconsin farmer Andy Diercks sits on a red Memorial Union Terrace chair in the middle of a farm field, holding a potato in his left hand. “It’s amazing all the work that goes into growing this little guy,” he says to Amanda Gevens, UW-Madison chair of plant pathology, who sits across from him. “The research you’ve done over the past decades is critical to grow a good quality crop.”

Gevens doesn’t disagree, noting that UW-Madison researchers developed an online weather tracker to help prevent blight in potatoes: “What’s at stake isn’t just the crop in the ground, it’s the sustainability of your family farm.”

The scene is from an ad campaign launched by UW-Madison in January to curry support for more state funding in the upcoming budget cycle. Around 14% of UW-Madison’s 2022-23 operating budget came from state funding.

But the loss of state funding may seem like small potatoes now compared to the potential loss of federal dollars — 25% of the university’s budget — from the Trump administration’s efforts to slash research dollars to universities and researchers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already frozen millions of dollars in federal funding and laid off thousands of probationary workers. 

UW administrators and researchers say these moves will force research and administrative cuts on campus and have far-reaching impacts on farmers across the state, like Diercks, who depend on UW research. A third-generation farmer, Diercks co-owns Coloma Farms Inc., with his father, growing potatoes, corn and soybeans.

“Such a huge part of the history of Wisconsin was really built off of this public research and farming partnership,” says Jules Reynolds, a laid-off federal worker who worked for a partner program between the USDA and UW-Madison. “[The federal government] is devaluing those long-term relationships, and the work that this research is doing to benefit farmers: saving farmers money on agricultural inputs, trying to find ways to make their farms more sustainable by conserving natural resources, [making] sure that farmers’ voices are heard in policy.”

At the center of UW-Madison’s agricultural research is the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences or CALS, as it is commonly referred to. The college employs nearly 250 faculty and enrolled almost 4,000 students in the 2023-24 school year. 

Around 78%, or $113.2 million, of the college’s 2022-23 research funding came from the federal government. Only three other colleges or schools at UW-Madison get more federal funding: the School of Medicine and Public Health, Graduate School and the College of Letters and Sciences. 

Since its founding in 1889, researchers at the college have, among other things, discovered disease resistance in plants, identified the first vitamin, pioneered the field of wildlife management, and synthesized the first gene. The college’s various direct services to Wisconsin farmers include diagnostic labs for plant diseases and insect damage, educational programs, and on-demand expert advice.

Its research is meant to benefit the entire state, says John Peck, who in 2004 earned a doctorate in land resources from the college.

“If you’re at CALS, part of the idea is that you’re not just at CALS,” says Peck, who co-owns a produce and floral farm in Brooklyn, Wisconsin, and is the executive director of Madison-based nonprofit Family Farm Defenders. “You're at a land grant college. What we do here matters to everybody in the state and beyond.”

The college, like others at UW-Madison, faces an uncertain federal funding environment. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the USDA sub-agency that administers a majority of the USDA’s grants to universities, has frozen submissions for competitive grant proposals. The USDA administered around 55% of U.S. agricultural research funding in 2019.

The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team have defended such measures as necessary to root out waste in government. A USDA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

In a Feb. 24 email to the college’s faculty, CALS Dean Glenda Gillaspy wrote that “many of the federal agencies that fund research programs in the college have undergone changes in their operations and policies.”

“We know this is creating stress for many who are uncertain about the status of current projects,” Gillaspy said. Research lab heads are currently responsible for making “decisions about using funds wisely to complete projects and meet our mission,” she added, noting that the university's provost and graduate school dean currently recommend that department chairs reduce graduate admission offers, given the uncertainty they’ll be funded.

The college operates 12 agricultural research stations to conduct on-site research across Wisconsin and works closely with UW-Madison’s research extension arm, UW Extension, to provide technical support and educational programs to farmers. 

Tommy Enright, communications director for the Wisconsin Farmers Union, which has 28 state chapters and represents over 2,200 families, says in an email that the college has “the largest concentration of faculty, resources and research funding for projects specific to Wisconsin agriculture.”

Enright calls the number of graduate programs at the college “vital,” and says smaller campuses would be unable to replace those programs were federal funding cut. If the college’s research slows down, he says, Wisconsin farmers would miss out on solutions for “controlling pests, improving soil health, or adjusting to extreme weather.” 

“Over time, that makes farming harder and less profitable, especially for small and mid-sized farms that can’t afford private research and consultants,” Enright adds.

It’s a similar story for any potential cuts to UW Extension, Enright says: “[Extension agents] are the ones who help farmers troubleshoot problems, whether it is a dairy farmer dealing with a new herd health issue or a grain farmer trying to improve soil fertility. If Extension funding gets cut, farmers lose access to that on-the-ground expertise.”

Hans Breitenmoser, a Wisconsin Farmers Union member, owns a 460-cow, 1,400 acre dairy farm in Merrill. He says he and other farmers rely on the “unbiased” research done at CALS to determine the value of farming products and technologies on the market.

Breitenmoser struggles to see any good in cutting the college’s research funding.

“Way back in the day, we figured out that a penny invested in that system is going to yield $10 on the back end, but we forgot that,” Breitenmoser says.

Researchers at the college, many of whom rely on federal funding, largely tackle “Wisconsin-based issues,” says Tracy Campbell, who completed her master's, doctorate and postdoctorate at CALS. 

Campbell wrote her dissertation on how levels of nitrate, a nutrient essential for plant growth that poses risks to human health at high concentrations, vary across central Wisconsin, working directly with farmers to collect irrigation water samples. 

One of her reports, supported by a $14,440 USDA grant, provided farmers with evidence that nitrate levels in irrigation water in the region are “substantial and need to be considered in nitrogen management plans and nitrogen budgets.”

“Most of my work was on water quality and water quality issues that are pretty specific to Wisconsin — whether it be the algae blooms we see in the Yahara Watershed, or the nitrate leaching that is pretty pronounced in the central part of the state,” Campbell says. 

After completing her doctorate in 2023, Campbell was hired through a USDA fellowship in June 2024 to produce a monthly climate outlook, outlining levels of soil moisture, precipitation, risk of drought and fire in an “agricultural and Midwest context” for farmers’ use. She also studied how the practice of adding trees or shrubs to pasture or crop land could benefit the environmental health of the land and crop yields. 

Campbell, like thousands of recently hired federal workers, was laid off through a stock email on Feb. 13, a move a federal judge in California on Feb. 28 deemed “likely illegal.” On March 13, the same federal judge mandated that six federal agencies, including the USDA, reinstate federal workers, though it’s unclear when or how that will happen.

The February email to Campbell said she was being fired for her lackluster performance, though she questions how that could be the case in a mass termination — and after being fired, she can’t even access her performance review. Still, even though she’s locked out of the USDA’s computer systems, Campbell contacted her former coworkers to make sure “someone has access to my data” and could potentially take over her projects — all while not being paid.

Campbell is not sure what her next move will be. 

“I am actively looking for jobs. [I] would love to stay in public service, but I don't quite know what avenue that would look like at this moment,” Campbell says. 

Jules Reynolds is also in limbo. After completing her doctorate at UW-Madison in May 2024, she was quickly hired as a program coordinator for the Soil Health Alliance for Research and Engagement, a collaboration between the USDA’s Dairy Forage Research Center, CALS and the nonprofit Michael Fields Agricultural Institute. “A lot of this research was specifically asking, ‘How can we better establish soil health practices that are in alignment with our farmers and our farming community needs?’”

Reynolds, a probationary employee, was also laid off in mid-February. She says she has not been contacted since U.S. District Judge William Alsup on March 13 directed the USDA to reinstate the laid-off workers. She also wasn’t contacted after a federal oversight board last week ordered the USDA to reinstate probationary employees and placed a 45-day stay on their terminations. The USDA said it would comply and reinstate employees by March 12 — with back pay. 

“Since [Alsup’s] decision did not place a 45-day stay on the terminations and had a much wider agency reach, I think it's all very hopeful and a win politically,” Reynolds says. But, she adds, there’s still “real uncertainty for what this means for employees and how to navigate the weeks/months ahead.”

“I feel very deeply about the work that I was doing — I've been working with farmers and food systems in Wisconsin for years now, and this truly is where I want to be,” Reynolds says. “So if there's a way for me to continue this line of work, that would be wonderful.” But, she adds, “I can't plan on that.”

She worries about how younger, early-career scientists will be impacted. UW-Madison is currently focused on “risk management” and supporting current students, she says, but, “that might mean limiting support for [incoming] students.” 

“I think that's devastating for the future of these institutions.”

Details are still sparse on how UW-Madison would fill potential federal funding shortfalls, and how budget cuts would be distributed, if they’re needed. Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said during a March 3 faculty senate meeting that the university is “developing a range of scenarios for implementing budget cuts,” should they come to fruition. She urged researchers’ caution in spending decisions.

A cut to National Institutes of Health research overhead funding could cost the university an estimated $65 million, though it’s under a temporary court injunction. Mnookin said the shortfall, if upheld in court, “would be hard for us to manage without meaningful change,” and would likely mean “some weakening of our research activity.”

Madeline Topf, co-president of the Teaching Assistants Association, the UW-Madison graduate workers union, says that many laboratory heads are in the dark about federal funding cuts.

“Labs have been directed by the university to not hire more staff and to refrain from large purchases,” Topf says, adding that many of the agencies CALS works with, like the USDA, are facing their own “layoffs and disruptions” that could impact the agency’s operations, and thus, the college’s operations. 

State legislators seem unlikely to step in to fill any funding cuts. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told The Daily Cardinal in February “it would be impossible for the state [of Wisconsin] to replace federal funding.”

State and federal investments in agricultural research were already on the decline, according to a 2022 article by the USDA’s Economic Research Service, even as other countries with large agricultural sectors — like China, India and Brazil — have increased their agricultural research spending. The decline is in spite of a clear financial return on investment, the article argued: Public spending on agricultural research and development from “1900 to 2011 generated, on average, $20 in benefits to the U.S. economy for every $1 of spending.” 

Absent public funding, Reynolds says many early career researchers may need to look to private sector jobs or foundations to support their research. She says research done at the USDA and UW-Madison does not seek to chase “market ends or market goals,” and is often more in line with farmers’ needs, such as saving money or reducing inputs.

Enright says cuts to CALS’ funding could also mean fewer future workers to toil in Wisconsin’s agriculture industry.

“Many of the people working in Wisconsin’s farm organizations, conservation programs, and rural development initiatives learned at CALS,” he says. “That means when we lose funding, we are not just losing research, we are also losing future leaders in Wisconsin [agriculture].”