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For the past 12 years, agricultural economist Dr. Peter Goldsmith led the Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was the principal and lead investigator.
The lab was part of a 19-lab system in 17 states that researched ways to improve soybean production, overcome plant disease, and use technological expertise to develop new opportunities.
Soon, Goldsmith will have no lab to lead unless something changes quickly.
“Today is a dark day when once there were so many winners,” Goldsmith wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“SIL, the Soybean Innovation Lab, will shutter its doors as of 4/15/25 as all USAID funding has ceased. Today I had to let go of a staff of 30. These individuals are not only unique experts in the field of tropical soybean, but also close colleagues and friends who are now unexpectedly out of work.”
Goldsmith shared in the post how it would not only be his lab that would close. “The land grant system now loses 19 crown jewel Innovation Labs, across 17 states, that delivered high and measurable impact on very little investment. U.S. soybean farmers lose one of their best tools to expand their markets and U.S. standards globally. Local economies in emerging markets lose soybean as an incomparable engine growing wealth, prosperity, and economic development.”
A lab at the University of Missouri-Columbia that collaborated with the Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is also shutting down. Kerry Clark, associate research professor and director of international programs for MU's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, said that SIL’s work helped people in Africa but also benefited American producers.
“Every USAID project was mandated to have benefit both to whatever country we were working in, as well as to the U.S. farmers. You may be doing the research in Africa, but your results are helping U.S. farmers because everything we learn about disease resistance or incorporating new genetics... it particularly helps build markets," Clark told KOMU-TV in Columbia, Missouri.
Goldsmith wrote in his LinkedIn post that SIL worked to increase opportunities in developing countries. And without his lab’s effort, international communities will suffer.
“International security is a loser, as local populations now fall back into poverty, unrest, and migration, due to greater food insecurity. U.S. influence loses as Innovation Labs operate on the ground in direct collaboration with hundreds of local businesses, organizations, and governments building strong and lasting friendships. Today we all lose. It is a shame. Innovation Labs like SIL are an investment for good on so many levels,” he wrote.
The Trump administration apparently did not see SIL as the investment for taxpayers that Goldsmith did. Elon Musk, the billionaire donor who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get Donald Trump elected president, heads DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and worked to defund USAID, a primary financial supporter for SIL.
Musk called USAID a “criminal organization” and alleged “fraud.”
American Farmland Owner has not been able to identify any evidence from Musk regarding his allegations of crimes.
Goldsmith told American Farmland Owner from his office in Champaign where former colleagues have now left that he grieves for what happened to SIL, its staff, and its commitment to American producers and emerging international markets.
“This is just grief from a loss.”
Working together with a variety of stakeholders and contributors was instrumental to SIL’s decades-long success, Goldsmith believes. “…our secret sauce is that we collaborate really well between ourselves, among ourselves.”
He holds out hope that somehow federal review and public outcry will convince the Trump administration to restore SIL’s funding. Will that happen? Can he find funding elsewhere? Can he pivot the SIL’s work in a different direction? Will the Trump administration’s approach realize significant savings for taxpayers without hurting American farmers and investors?
Goldsmith doesn’t know. He didn’t expect to be in this position.
“Focus on my one-and-a-half-year-old, my five-year-old, and take care of my aging parents. Be a good husband to my wife. Start shopping for mulch? I don’t know what I’m going to do. I didn’t have a ‘plan B.’”
RELATED: Kansas farmers have a surplus of sorghum and lost a prominent market after President Donald Trump and Elon Musk shut down the USAID program, Food for Peace. The program fought world hunger and expanded market opportunities for U.S. producers.
