By: Jeff Beach (North Dakota Monitor)
A North Dakota ag and conservation researcher is unsure if she will be able to complete some projects — or start new ones — because of delays in federal payments.
“Because they can’t assure me I’m going to get paid, I have to stop work,” Rebecca Phillips told the North Dakota Monitor.
Phillips, who runs a nonprofit research business based in Hazelton, received an email from the U.S. Department of Agriculture informing her that payments had been paused because of President Donald Trump’s Feb. 26 executive order giving the Department of Government Efficiency authority.
The $81,000 reimbursement she submitted for one project in January was paid on March 13, but with future payments uncertain, she does not plan to complete the project.
“When that momentum gets broken or stalled, then the research clearly suffers,” Phillips said. “And the investment that you already put into it, there’s a lot of waste there.”
Phillips said she has had to lay off her one full-time staff person employed by her Ecological Insights Corp. She also hires part-time or seasonal employees.
But because she is not sure about future payments, the jobs and the research project are on hold.
The USDA awarded Phillips a $103,000 research grant in September 2023. The research was focused on the impact of erosion on a wooded area near Cavalier and how best to repair the land.
The final stage of the project was supposed to be a training day for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a branch of the USDA.
Phillips also may not finish another project due to the uncertainty. As part of a soil study, she accumulated soil samples from across the state and prepared them for analysis by Agvise Laboratories in Northwood. It was supposed to be a long-term project, she said.
Phillips said USDA also has put a hold on new requests for proposals for ag research.
“Research is one of those things that needs to keep running,” Phillips said. “If smaller organizations like mine and others can’t stay in business, it’s going to mean that a lot of resources that the farmers and ranchers would be able to access wouldn’t be there anymore.”
Phillips said USDA uses grants and contracts because it is cheaper than adding more federal employees. She said there are strict guidelines regarding what expenses can be reimbursed.
“It isn’t like they just give me a big bucket of money and say, ‘Do what you want,’” Phillips said.
“At the Bismarck office, there are three people that scrutinize paperwork to make sure that we only are asking for reimbursement on approved expenses. So there’s no slush fund, there’s no excess, there’s no abusing any of this.”
Greg Lardy, vice president of agricultural affairs at North Dakota State University, said many people don’t realize that most federal grant money is through reimbursements – not delivered in a lump sum.
Federal reimbursements for ag research at NDSU are back on a normal schedule after some delays, Lardy said.
However, NDSU is a partner on one research project that has been halted. Lardy said a conservation research project has had its funding interrupted.
The Biden administration had created grants that were designed to help farmers and ranchers implement conservation practices.
NDSU’s role was to produce educational materials based on the research in western North Dakota.
Lardy said NDSU is sometimes the leader on research projects, but also might be a partner with private industry research, commodity groups or nonprofits.
Lardy said NDSU was closely watching the situation with one research partner — the federal Agricultural Research Service, where he said probationary employees have been let go.
“They have a large presence here on campus,” Lardy said of ARS, which also has staff in Mandan and at the Human Nutrition Research Center in Grand Forks. “We’re concerned about … what that means for the research that our stakeholders across the region need.”
A judge has ordered that fired USDA workers should be rehired. While DOGE is new, complaints of delayed federal payments are not.
Greg Tehven, who chairs the board of North Dakota’s Grand Farm ag research project near Casselton, testified in a congressional hearing last year that delayed payments were an issue then, too.
He said Grand Farm needed a loan to make payroll while it awaited federal payments on $1.4 million in federal contracts.
But Grand Farm says it has not experienced any new impacts with the change of administration and does not foresee a dropoff in research. Grand Farm works with the Agricultural Research Service and NDSU, but also has private investments from companies such as Microsoft, Tharaldson Ethanol and CHS, formerly known as Cenex Harvest States.
Phillips said it is the research focused on conservation, such as decreasing erosion and natural carbon storage, that seem most at risk.
Researching carbon storage in the roots of grasses is one of her specialties but she said it may not be a high priority under the Trump administration.
“It’s still a global market. Even though this state or this government might not care about it, other countries do,” she said.
