DOGE’s Cuts at the USDA Could Cause US Grocery Prices to Rise and Invasive Species to Spread

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1. Dog trainers are just one example of the kind of highly specialized USDA staff that have been removed from their stations in recent weeks. Teams devoted to inspecting plant and food imports have been hit especially hard by the recent cuts, including the Plant Protection and Quarantine program, which has lost hundreds of staffers alone.

   “It’s causing problems left and right,” says one current USDA worker, who like other federal employees in this story asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “It’s basically a skeleton crew working now,” says another current USDA staffer, who noted that both they and most of their colleagues held advanced degrees and had many years of training to protect US food and agriculture supply chains from invasive pests. “It’s not something that is easily replaced by artificial intelligence.”

   “These aren’t your average people,” says Mike Lahar, the regulatory affairs manager at US customs broker behemoth Deringer. “These were highly trained individuals—inspectors, entomologists, taxonomists.”

   Lahar and other supply chain experts warn that the losses could cause food to go rotten while waiting in ports and could lead to even higher grocery prices, in addition to increasing the chances of potentially devastating invasive species getting into the country. These dangers are especially acute at a moment when US grocery supply chains are already reeling from other business disruptions such as [bird flu](https://www.wired.com/story/chickens-vaccines-us-bird-flu/) and President Trump’s [new tariffs](https://www.wired.com/story/why-trumps-metal-tariffs-wont-lead-to-the-all-american-iphone/).

   Read more: [https://www.wired.com/story/usda-food-supply-chains/](https://www.wired.com/story/usda-food-supply-chains/)

2. We are fucked in Michigan, it took 15 years to get the lampreys under control. They are going to go hog wild now that there won’t be any control paid for by the Feds. This will be millions of dollars in losses for fisheries and recreation/

3. The worst part about this all is how long term some of these problems will be.

   MAGA idiots will claim victory in the short term with some line item on a spreadsheet. And yet it will be something that causes problems to grow and grow, which will bite us in the months and years to come, and at which point they will be massive problems to solve.

   It’s like a cancer patient saying “hey, look at all the money and hassle I’m saving by cancelling my chemotherapy!”

4. This is a boss who views all employees as a cost. You sack everyone make a saving but then fold but the big guy takes his bonus and moves on. Vote because that is all u have left

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