The U.S. Department of Agriculture didn’t confirm to the Cap Times how many people were laid off from its research facilities in Wisconsin.

Arther estimated it was around a quarter of those working at the Dairy Forage Research Center and 28 people total across all USDA research facilities in Wisconsin. As of Feb. 8, there were 110 individual researchers and support staff working for USDA in the state.

The layoffs could have a major effect on dairy, as well as research into the vegetables and grains that dot farmers’ fields across Wisconsin, Arther said.

Those researchers are among thousands fired or laid off since Trump took office last month. The job cuts are happening alongside a broader effort to remake the federal government, with Trump attempting to freeze billions in funding from Washington, D.C.

They include those like Arther who have been dismissed while on their probationary period. Others have been offered an early retirement or were fired because they worked on diversity, equity and inclusion issues.

About 18,000 federal employees live and work in Wisconsin, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service. That includes as many as 5,800 in the Madison area.

Among them are service members based at Wisconsin’s military institutions; nurses, doctors and social workers employed at the state’s three Department of Veterans Affairs’ hospitals; and researchers who study agriculture.

“It’s just kind of idiotic what they’re doing,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-town of Vermont, said at a town hall last month in Madison.

Layoffs hit federal agencies in Madison

In Wisconsin, like every state, the USDA has a number of research facilities, with their work intended to help farmers, rural communities and consumers.

That includes the Dairy Forage Research Center, which focuses on the environmental impact of dairy farming, nutrition and feed for dairy cows and other research relevant to the dairy industry.

Arther’s research centered on improving alfalfa quality and exploring new uses for the crop, such as incorporating it into plant-based foods for humans.

The position, she said, was exciting as it gave her the chance to work closely with alfalfa growers and industry officials, as well as dairy farmers.

Recently, many private companies have stopped researching alfalfa, giving her lab a chance to step up and fill the gap. The lab was important, Arthur said, because researchers there could work on projects that might not meet the immediate profit demands of the business world.

“I knew I wanted to work in the public sector, because the public sector can really get things done, science-wise especially, that you can’t really do in the private sector,” Arther said.

Arther said she suspected trouble shortly after Trump was inaugurated. She received an email from the federal Office of Personnel Management warning of cuts to employees considered related to diversity, equity and inclusion programs and asking other staff to inform the agency about “covert” DEI efforts.

“That was definitely the weirdest email I’ve ever received that is an official government communication,” she said. “I think that started setting off a lot of alarm bells.”

Trump and his allies, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is helping to lead the newly formed task force called the Department of Government Efficiency, have framed the moves as a way of reducing waste in the federal government.

A USDA spokesperson said the layoffs were a part of a “solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”

“I love what Elon is doing, I love what DOGE is doing,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, told Fox Business Thursday. “They are uncovering and exposing (to) the American public the grotesque levels of waste, fraud and abuse. But we need to turn that exposure into law, we need to turn that into spending reductions.”

Federal workers themselves have pushed back on that narrative.

Carl Houtman, a chemical engineer for the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, said the cuts had already harmed his ability to coordinate research work.

A retired union official, Melissa Baumann, said at least five people on probationary terms had been let go at the lab in Madison, with as much as 10% of the U.S. Forest Services workforce affected nationally.

Houtman said those cuts will have a devastating effect on the lab’s work, which is focused on innovation in paper products, like food packaging, and supporting corporations and research universities.

“I had to walk a young, new chemist out of the building on Friday,” Houtman said. “She’s the future of research. It’s just astounding. And what it’s doing for our facility, is it’s going to be a lot of old people like me standing around working there. Because there’s going to be nothing left when I turn off the lights — that’s going to be it.”

There is no official estimate of the number of federal workers laid off, either in Wisconsin or across the country. The effects on other key government agencies also remains uncertain.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced plans to dismiss 1,000 probationary employees. The agency said at the time that the cuts won’t touch “mission-critical positions” and that the savings of $98 million a year would be redirected into improving VA services.

A spokesperson for the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Shorewood Hills confirmed that “a small number” of probationary employees had been terminated but said the “decision will have no negative effect on Veteran health care, benefits or other services.”

A spokesperson for the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee confirmed layoffs there with an identical statement.

Workers fear impact of dairy research cuts

On Feb. 13, Arther received a text from a colleague in Minnesota warning her that a probationary worker there had been dismissed. At 4:30 p.m., she was notified by USDA’s human resources department that she too was being laid off, effective at the end of the day, setting off a half-hour scramble to pause her research operations and get her affairs in order.

Being fired while on probation didn’t mean that workers were of low quality, Arther said, noting she had no issues raised during her regular performance reviews.

Arther isn’t originally from Wisconsin and didn’t anticipate making her home here until she was hired by the USDA in August 2022. Figuring they would settle in Madison, she bought a home with her husband and had a baby, who is now 2 years old.

Her husband quit his job to watch their child, meaning neither is currently employed, leaving the family with an uncertain financial future.

“It was pretty sudden that it was confirmed that I was actually getting fired and so we’re just absolutely scrambling,” she said. “And it’s hard because we don’t have a lot of family around to help us right now.”

Arther also fears for the impact the cuts will have on important research in a state that houses 13% of America’s dairy cattle.

The layoffs amount to wasting the resources that had been invested into setting up research programs, she said, with the work now effectively destined to “die on the vine.”

The full fallout of that, Arther warned, might not be felt until “years into the future.”

“If we’re not moving the dairy industry forward, we’re not going to be able to anticipate needs and solve problems that might come up, especially with climate change,” she said. “It’s going to be really hard to maintain economic viability, I think, of the dairy industry in Wisconsin.”

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