Agriculture finds itself in the middle of one of the biggest federal government transformations in recent memory. Programs have been purged. Priorities have been shifted. And initiatives have been ended. Uncertainty is rampant.
Workers like Logan Conner have become unemployed. Conner is one of the federal employees with the USDA who found out that his job had ended. He worked at a USDA lab in Ames, Iowa.
“This was my dream job to work in public service and help do environmental research,” Conner said after learning that he would be fired in a mass email last week in what dismissed workers refer to as “The Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
Conner was a former student employee of the year at Iowa State University before he began his full-time position in research for the USDA National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment.
“Making sure crops aren’t only producing good yields but also doing so in a safe and effective way,” said of his mission at the lab.
WATCH: Logan Conner explains the work that he did for agriculture during his brief time as a full-time federal employee at the USDA National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames, Iowa. He also describes how he found out that he would lose his job along with numerous colleagues. And he questions how research will continue with the diminished workforce.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans across the federal government may lose their employment as the Trump administration shrinks the workforce as it prepares for new tax cuts later this year and implements its remake of the system to support the new president’s politics.
An estimated 200,000 workers have already received notice that they have been fired.
The USDA is an instrumental part in the country’s efforts against highly pathogenic avian influenza that has resulted in the culling of tens of millions of birds in the past few years, limiting chicken and turkey supply and sending the price of eggs soaring.
RELATED: Three Indiana farms are quarantined after confirmed detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza. Watch the story from WISH-TV in Indianapolis here.
Some of Conner’s colleagues at the USDA labs in Ames were involved in research and response to HPAI outbreaks. Those included Kim Vore.
Vore told the Des Moines Register about her firing, about which she learned in an email at 11 p.m. “I love the job, love the company (of her fellow employees). The people are just, you know, they work hard, and people think it's a waste of money," she said.
"These scientists get paid less through federal government than they do in the civilian world, and they choose to take that because they care about their work so damn much, and they work hard for no more money. So, to say you're cutting waste and spending like that just isn't the case with these workers,” Vore said.
The Trump administration has backtracked on some of its actions to fire workers and is trying to rehire some who are involved with the federal HPAI response.
American Farmland Owner has been unable so far to learn how many fired USDA employees could get rehired.
It also remains unknown how the dismissals could impact vaccine research and implementation to better contain the virus and slow its assault on poultry operations and investment.
RELATED: Nebraska Farm Bureau President Mark McHargue is among the American farmers who wonder if they will get the federal support on which they once counted when they began conservation improvements on their farm operations. The Trump administration halted millions of dollars in payments to farmers during its reported review of federal spending.
Farmers are left wondering how much of their anticipated federal financial support they will eventually receive or if they will get any of it once reviews are complete.
