Donor Will Continue Work for Soybean Innovation Lab

An anonymous donor has come forward to save some of the work that the Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) planned after the Trump administration slashed U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding and programs. Dr. Peter Goldsmith, who led the Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the past 12 years, announced the gift. The philanthropic financial infusion re-ignites Goldsmith’s work that had been shuddered after SIL lost its federal support through USAID earlier this year.

“As many of you know the Soybean Innovation Lab was due to close April 15, 2025. Back in 2012, USAID recognized the dual strategic interests for US industry and African policymakers to establish soybean as the industrial protein and oil standard in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Goldsmith, an agricultural economist, wrote on LinkedIn.

USAID was a Target of the Trump Administration

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted the administration’s criticism of USAID in March on the social media platform, “X.”

Goldsmith’s lab at the University of Illinois was part of a 19-lab system in 17 states that researched ways to improve soybean production, overcome plant disease, and use technological expertise to develop new opportunities.

He told American Farmland Owner in February after learning that what had been a stable federal funding government for his lab had ended, “This is just grief from a loss.”

RELATED: Here is what Dr. Peter Goldsmith told American Farmland Owner about why SIL’s loss of federal funding would impact more than the people who live in other countries where some of its work takes place. 

Soybean Innovation Lab's Innovation and Humanitarian Outreach

At the time, Goldsmith lamented how SIL’s work to lessen poverty and hunger in developing countries would suffer. And while he acknowledged that many Americans may not see a direct benefit – other than humanitarian outreach – they should know that SIL research could advance agriculture overall, which could help American farmers and producers, too.

In Goldsmith’s new announcement about the anonymous donation to fund the lab, he wrote, “Soybean expansion in Africa is still a great idea, but replacing the scale and quality of the federal funding due to USAID's closing has proven difficult. Recently, an anonymous donor has made a $1.02m gift to the University of Illinois to continue SIL research for one year.”

Goldsmith explained what SIL will again be able to do. He wrote, “The gift allows SIL to reopen its doors, hire back some of its employees, focus research in one area, southern Malawi, and explore new sustainable sources of research funding.”

The global nonprofit, Founders Pledge, handled the anonymous donation for SIL. An article from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences said that the donation could, “…fund the lab and core staff for another year.

While durable federal investments are necessary to support the previous scale of SIL’s work and that of the university as a whole, the reprieve will allow SIL to complete some of its most critical work and give Goldsmith time to seek stable funding into the future.” 

RELATED: Paul Pittman, the founder and executive chairman of Farmland Partners, told American Farmland Owner about a year ago that he knew that farm incomes could fall but explained why he believes that farmland values will remain stronger than some others expect.