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Soy innovation lab closure has impacts for MO

An associate research professor at the University of Missouri says local farmers will feel the impacts of the closure of a Soy Innovation Lab in Illinois.

Kerry Clark says U.S. Agency for International Development funding helped MU researchers evaluate soybean production: phosphorus, genetic resistance and maturities and farmers will likely see an uptick in crop diseases, like soybean rust, in the future.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago, soybean rust blew into the U.S. from Tropical areas to the United States. Diseases don’t tend to stay in the place of origin unless you fight them in the place of origin. That’s one of the things we can’t do anymore.”

The Trump administration has ceased funding for U.S. AID projects, including the Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois.

Researchers, including Clark at the University of Missouri, contributed to projects for the lab, along with researchers at the University of Illinois, Iowa State University and Mississippi State University and across the globe. Clark had $150,000 annually to develop a mechanization fabrication industry in Africa.

Clark says the small investment projects went a long way in building global trade markets.  

“That’s going to be greatly diminished as USAID has withdrawn and dissolved. Those areas it was working in, there’s a void left that will be filled by other countries, most likely China.”

As Brownfield has previously reported, a federal review of the funding cut has been requested and if the decision isn’t overturned, the Soybean Innovation Lab will close mid-April.

Hear the interview.