Originally published on February 2, 2021 7:13 am
During the Trump administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers published and funded objective analyses of issues such as climate change, the efficiency of food assistance programs, and tax cuts that mostly benefit the richest farmers. It wasn't received well.
"There definitely was hostility in the Trump administration towards federal workers," says Tom Bewick, a national program leader at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. "There was also hostility in the Trump administration towards science, and so, if you were a federal employee and a science agency, that was the double whammy."
Trump officials proposed deep cuts to USDA research agencies. When Congress wouldn't go along, the administration came up with plan B: Move two agencies — the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service — far away from Washington.