Click the link to read the article on The Kiowa County Press website (Roz Brown). Here’s an excerpt:
Working without fanfare, federal scientists at 22 U.S. sites maintain the nation’s agricultural plant species collected since 1898, including crops native to New Mexico. But the Trump administration’s DOGE agency has fired them. The move creates uncertainly for hundreds of crop species that undergird the country’s food system. The U.S. National Plant Germplasm System safeguards the genetic diversity of agriculturally important plants. Iago Hale, associate professor of specialty crop improvement at the University of New Hampshire, said the potential loss of these “seed bunkers” should alarm every American.
“If you subsist totally on chicken nuggets and KFC, that’s fine – understand that that comes back to plants grown in the field. The breading on your fried chicken, the French fries that you’re eating – these are all products of crops, and this is how it works,” Iago Hale said.
Hale said the NPGS is central to the nation’s preparedness, because the food system is only as safe as our ability to respond to the next plant disease. Unless dormant seeds are continually cared for and periodically replanted, Hale noted the lines will die, along with their evolutionary history. Hale said potatoes, the fourth-largest crop, require even more care than wheat or corn.
