Following President Donald Trump's cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Georgia's Senator Jon Ossoff pushed back by urging the administration to restore funding to the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Feed the Future Innovation Lab (FTFIL) to help the state's peanut farmers strengthen yields and fight crop disease.

Last month, UGA received notice that the Trump Administration was terminating the program, after USAID had announced an additional $15 million investment in UGA’s FTFIL in 2023 for five years.

In February, the agency said that the Lab’s work “is not aligned with [USAID] priorities” and “made a determination that continuing this program is not in the national interest.”

In the letter to Marco Rubio, Acting Administrator of USAID, and Nadeem Shah, Deputy Director of the Office of Acquisition and Assistance at USAID, Senator Ossoff asked them to restore the funds to the program.

"Since 2018, the University of Georgia has hosted the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut. Researchers at this Lab have studied the impacts of different temperatures and rainfall patterns on peanut growth, developed new disease-resistant peanut varieties, and created a risk index tool to help U.S. farmers increase yield potential and improve peanut quality," he said. 

He asked the agency for a response within one week with an update on funding for the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut at the University of Georgia, and a detailed reasoning for the State Department’s decision to terminate funding for agricultural research that helps American farmers.