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u.s. department of agriculture
Trump-GOP Budget Imperils Pollinators Amid Bee Colony Collapse
One scientist asked, "How can the administration make good on its promise to make America healthy again while cutting support for the bees that are essential to producing fruits and vegetables?"
May 16, 2025
Scientists warned Friday that over $300 million in federal funding cuts for bee research proposed in U.S. House Republicans' budget reconciliation package imperils critical conservation efforts amid an ongoing colony collapse crisis afflicting the indispensable pollinators.
The proposed budget, which is backed by President Donald Trump, cancels $307 million in funding for the Ecosystem Management Area, the division of the U.S. Geological Survey that oversees biological research including the USGS Bee Lab. The laboratory is the government's preeminent pollinator research institution and plays a crucial role in efforts to conserve thousands of native U.S. bee species.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) noted Friday that "native bees pollinate 75% of flowering plants, including fruit and vegetable crops that are important to a healthy diet. Through crop and wild plant pollination, native bees contribute $3 trillion to the global economy."
"To ensure an abundant supply of food, we have to protect pollinators."
Although the latest quinquennial Census of Agriculture showed the nation's honeybee population hit an all-time high in 2022, researchers forecast a 60-70% decline in U.S. commercial honeybee colonies in 2025, a significant increase from average annual losses of 40-50% over the past decade.
"How can the administration make good on its promise to make America healthy again while cutting support for the bees that are essential to producing fruits and vegetables?" CBD staff scientist Jess Tyler said Friday. "As pollinator population declines get worse, we need to double down on research and protections for bees to ensure a healthy and affordable food supply."
"You can't have an America-first agenda if America can't feed itself," Tyler added. "I implore the Trump administration to reconsider its slashing of the Bee Lab's budget. To ensure an abundant supply of food, we have to protect pollinators."
Earlier this week, the government notified USGS researchers and students that their funding could be frozen and staff terminated as part of the Trump administration's gutting of federal agencies, led by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. While a federal judge earlier this month temporarily blocked Trump's mass layoffs, the administration has appealed the ruling, fueling uncertainty over ongoing and future research.
John Ternest, a scientist who studied pollinators at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's research arm who was laid off in February, toldThe New York Times last month that about 15 bee researchers have already been fired.
"We have so many crops that are going into bloom and rely on pollination right when all of this was happening—the firings, the crisis of honeybees," Ternest said. "What kind of trickle-down effect does that have on, of course, the farmers, but potentially even things like food prices?"
"Somebody has to push back—it's time to speak out."
Sam Droege, a biologist at the USGS Bee Lab, warned this week that the Ecosystems Mission Area—the U.S. Interior Department's biological research arm—"is absolutely, completely targeted" for layoffs by the Trump administration.
"Somebody has to push back—it's time to speak out," Droege said.
Retired senior USGS research official John Organ said earlier this month that "the elimination of funding for the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area will be a generational catastrophe for North American—and global—conservation science and management."
"Who will train the next generation of fish and wildlife managers, scientists, and leaders while conducting actionable science to help ensure future generations will be able to enjoy and benefit from our public trust in wildlife?" Organ wondered.
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'Vindictive': Trump USDA Freezes $100 Million for University of Maine Amid Trans Athlete Fight
"This administration is targeting our state for retribution," said Rep. Chellie Pingree, "all because our elected officials are standing up for the rule of law."
Mar 11, 2025
The Trump administration on Tuesday appeared to step up its clash with Maine's Democratic-led government over the state's support for transgender women who play on women's sports teams, as the University of Maine announced $100 million in its federal funding had been halted.
The university system said the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding was being temporarily paused while the Trump administration investigates whether the University of Maine System (UMS) is violating Title VI or Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibit discrimination based on race or national origin and sex, respectively.
The USDA began a review of UMS compliance with the Civil Rights Act in February, a day after Gov. Janet Mills told President Donald Trump at a White House event that she was prepared to defend Maine's decision to continue allowing transgender students to play on girl's and women's sports teams.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) updated its policies to comply with Trump's executive order requiring the Department of Education to notify school districts that allowing transgender students to compete on women's teams violates Title IX.
"If all of their funding was removed from USDA, that would have a really big impact on farmers on the ground here."
But Mills told Trump that she will "comply with state and federal law." In 2021, Maine's state laws were updated to allow student athletes to compete on teams that correspond to their identity as long as there are no safety concerns.
Since the USDA opened its review of UMS policies, the university system has confirmed to the department that its athletic programs are in compliance with state and federal laws and that its schools that are part of the NCAA are following the association's recently updated policies.
UMS said in a statement Tuesday that after notifying the USDA of its compliance on February 26, it did not hear from the department until the notice of the funding pause was sent on March 10, with the USDA accusing the university of "blatant disregard" for Trump's executive order.
The agency said last month that UMS "receives over $100 million in USDA funding."
UMS said Tuesday that it has received funding from federal agencies including the USDA since its founding in 1865, with the USDA awarding $29.78 million in 2024 for research benefiting the largely rural state.
UMS has used its current USDA funding to invest in numerous projects, including but not limited to:
- Research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as forever chemicals, on Maine farms;
- The development of sustainable packaging materials derived from Maine's forests;
- Research on the health and sustainability of the state's lobster fishery;
- Support for 4-H youth leadership and STEM skill development programs serving tens of thousands of Maine youth annually; and
- Education and outreach to Maine livestock farmers on farm biosecurity and disease outbreak preparedness.
"If all of their funding was removed from USDA, that would have a really big impact on farmers on the ground here," Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, toldReuters last month after the agency launched its review of UMS.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) denounced the USDA's "vindictive" funding pause, noting that the agency "shared no findings, and offered no opportunity for a hearing."
"It fails to provide any sort of timeline or opportunities for recourse," she said in a statement posted on social media. "Let's be clear about what this latest funding freeze will do: It will hurt farmers and rural Mainers, it will halt critically-needed research innovation, and it will slash educational opportunities for students throughout Maine. Once again, it appears as though this administration is targeting our state for retribution—all because our elected officials are standing up for the rule of law."
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The Real Reason for Soaring Egg Prices? Gouging by the 'Rotten Egg Oligarchy'
A new Food & Water Watch report details how "corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
Mar 04, 2025
The nation's largest egg producers would have American consumers believe that avian flu and inflation are behind soaring prices, but a report published Tuesday shows corporate price gouging is the real culprit driving the record cost of the dietary staple.
The fourth installment of Food & Water Watch's (FWW) Economic Cost of Food Monopolies series—titled The Rotten Egg Oligarchy—reports that the average price of a dozen eggs in the United States hit an all-time high of $4.95 in January 2025. That's more than two-and-a-half times the average price from three years ago.
"While egg prices spiral out of reach, making eggs a luxury item, Big Ag is profiting hand over fist," FWW research director Amanda Starbuck said in a statement. "But make no mistake—today's high prices are built on a foundation of corporate price gouging. Our research shows how corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
FWW found that "egg prices were already rising before the current [avian flu] outbreak hit U.S. commercial poultry flocks in February 2022, and have never returned to pre-outbreak levels."
Furthermore, "egg price spikes hit regions that were bird flu-free until recently," the report states. "The U.S. Southeast remained free of bird flu in its table egg flocks until January 2025, and actually increased egg production in 2022 and 2023 over 2021 levels. Nevertheless, retail egg prices in the Southeast rose alongside January 2023's national price spikes."
"The corporate food system is to blame for exacerbating the scale of the outbreak as well as the high cost of eggs," the publication continues. "Factory farms are virus incubators, with the movement of animals, machines, and workers between operations helping to spread the virus."
"Meanwhile, just a handful of companies produce the majority of our eggs, giving them outsized control over the prices paid by retailers, who often pass on rising costs to consumers," the paper adds. "This highly consolidated food system also enables companies to leverage a temporary shortage in one region to raise prices across the entire country."
Cal-Maine, the nation's top egg producer, enjoyed a more than 600% increase in gross profits between fiscal years 2021-23, according to FWW. The Mississippi-based company did not suffer any avian flu outbreaks in fiscal year 2023, during which it sold more eggs than during the previous two years. Yet it still sold conventional eggs at nearly three times the price as in 2021, amounting to over $1 billion in windfall profits. Meanwhile Cal-Maine paid shareholders dividends totaling $250 million in 2023, 40 times more during the previous fiscal year.
The report highlights how factory farming creates ideal conditions for the spread of avian flu, a single case of which requires the extermination of the entire flock at the affected facility, under federal regulations.
"These impacts cannot be understated," FWW stressed. "Today's average factory egg farm confines over 800,000 birds, with some operations confining several million. This magnifies the scale of animal suffering and death, as well as the enormous environmental and safety burden of disposing of a million or more infected bird carcasses."
Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures, The Guardianreported Tuesday that more than 54 million birds have been affected in the past three months alone.
Egg producers know precisely how the supply-and-demand implications of these outbreaks and subsequent culls can boost their bottom lines. Meanwhile, they play a dangerous game as epidemiologists widely view a potential avian flu mutation that can be transmitted from birds to humans as the next major pandemic threat—one that's exacerbated by the Trump administration's withdrawal from the World Health Organization and cuts to federal agencies focused on averting the next pandemic.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else."
So far, 70 avian flu cases—one of them fatal—have been reported in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, under Trump, the CDC has stopped publishing regular reports on its avian flu response plans and activities. The USDA, meanwhile, said it "accidentally" terminated staffers working on avian flu response during the firing flurry under Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The agency is scrambling to reverse the move.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else," the FWW report argues. "Nor can we allow the factory farm system to continue polluting our environment and serving as the breeding ground for the next human pandemic."
"We need to enforce our nation's antitrust laws to go after corporate price fixing and collusion," the publication adds. "We also need a national ban on new and expanding factory farms, while transitioning to smaller, regional food systems that are more resilient to disruptions."
That is highly unlikely under Trump, whose policies—from taxation to regulation and beyond—have overwhelmingly favored the ultrawealthy and corporations over working Americans. Meanwhile, one of the president's signature campaign promises, to lower food prices "on day one," has evaporated amid ever-rising consumer costs.
According to the USDA's latest Food Price Outlook, overall food prices are projected to rise 3.4% in 2025. Eggs, however, are forecast to soar a staggering 41.1% this year—and possibly by as much as 74.9%.
"If President Trump has any interest in fulfilling his campaign pledge to lower food prices," Starbuck stressed, "he must begin by taking on the food monopolies exploiting pandemic threat for profit."
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