Wide range of layoffs The Department of Agriculture’s Department of Scientists has cast a key research into the confusion, according to former and current employees of the agency. Scientists who suffered layoffs were working on projects to improve crops, protect against pests and diseases, and to understand the climate impacts of agricultural practices. Layoffs also threaten to undermine the billions of taxpayer dollars paid to farmers to support conservation practices, experts warn.
USDA layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s mass shootings of federal employees, and protect them before they gain full-time status, which could be up to three years, primarily for USDA scientists. It is aimed at people who are in the observation period. The agency has not released accurate shooting figures, but it is estimated and reported that hundreds of staff are included in key science subagencies. 3,400 employees Forest Bureau.
The employee was reportedly fired on February 13th with a blanket email that Wired saw. “The agency has found that based on your performance, it has not demonstrated that further employment at the agency will be in the public interest,” the email said.
One laid back employee described the weeks before the layoff as “chaos” when the USDA suspends (in response For orders from (Trump administration) and then (in response to court orders) work related to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was to aside large amounts of federal funds for climate policy. Landmark 2022 law passed under. “It was just pausing, disabling, pausing, cheating. After 4-5 business days, I think I can literally achieve nothing,” he said, “IRA-related projects. said the former employee who worked on and asked to remain anonymous to protect him from retaliation.
The IRA provided USDA $300 million to help sequester carbon sequestering from agriculture and quantifying greenhouse gas emissions. The funding was intended to support the $8.45 billion farmer subsidies spent on the IRA-approved Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP). Practices with potential environmental benefitssuch as harvesting covers and improving waste storage. At least one contracted agricultural project funded by EQIP has been suspended by the Trump administration, Reuters reports.
The $300 million was to be used to establish an agricultural greenhouse gas network that could monitor the effectiveness of the types of conservation practices funded by EQIP and other multibillion dollar conservation programs. says Emily Bass, associate director of federal policy, food and food. A groundbreaking agricultural research institute at the Center for Environmental Research. This work was partially carried out by the National Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) and the Agricultural Research Services (ARS).
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“It’s taxpayer dollars, and the quantification work of ARS and NRC is an important part of measuring the actual impact on emission reductions for these programs,” Bass said. “Midway halt or hamstring efforts are a huge waste of resources already being spent.”
Current ARS scientists claim that almost 40% of scientists were fired along with multiple support staff because scientists who spoke to the wire anonymously were not allowed to speak to the press. Many of their unit’s projects are currently in disarray, scientists say. This includes tasks planned over a five-year cycle and require close monitoring of plant specimens. “In the short term, you can keep that material alive, but if there’s no one on that project, you can’t always do it indefinitely.”
