Michigan State University research projects impacted by federal cuts
Research on agricultural projects has been on the chopping block at universities across the country.
At Michigan State University, the cuts could mean job losses, project stoppages and a domino effect for food security. Researchers who saw those funding cuts gathered on MSU's campus to raise awareness about their impact.
"I am actually one of the faces of the casualties of some of these cuts by the government," said Jan Fierro, who will see her position eliminated with the Future Biotechnology Potato Partnership in June.
Fierro tells CBS News Detroit that grant work can be unstable, so she wasn't surprised to see her position eliminated.
"What we're doing is really important work, and to just see it terminated really without any kind of proper review really is just a really hard thing to take, it just makes you really sad," she said.
According to MSU professor David Douches, 20 projects, including those on beans and potatoes, were slashed. Douches says it's a major impact that will be felt well beyond Michigan's borders.
Douches said he's never seen such major changes to research funding in his nearly 40 years of work.
"We were helping Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria and Kenya," he said. "I've never had a project in the middle shut down by the government. This was a first."
Douches said the new hope is to get funding for this research in other ways. He and his fellow researchers want the MSU community and the rest of Michigan to push lawmakers to fight for the funding.
"We feel hurt, but we're trying to move past that and find a way to keep this going," he said.
