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US cuts to funding for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization have halted critical programmes for monitoring the surging bird flu outbreak, sparking outrage from American farming trade groups.
The Trump administration’s radical cuts to overseas development funding have wiped $160mn from the FAO’s health security efforts, shutting down initiatives to monitor and contain H5N1 avian influenza even as it sweeps across continents, according to data seen by the Financial Times.
“Given the potential impact of these outbreaks on the United States and countries worldwide, FAO is urgently working to secure alternative funding to maintain essential animal disease monitoring and control activities,” deputy director-general Beth Bechdol said.
The closure of the USAID-funded Global Health Security programme means some 64 projects in 51 countries will be scrapped, according to data seen by the FT.
Surveillance of birds migrating in the Atlantic corridor through El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which helped protect the US industry, has been shut down.
Another project working with countries to collect data from the Pacific coast flyaway north from Argentina has been axed, depriving Californian and British Columbian egg and poultry producers of key statistics.
Further afield, the Trump administration has scrapped programmes that mitigated bird flu outbreaks in hotspots such as Cambodia and Vietnam by detecting flare-ups of the virus and helping to develop vaccines faster.
The outbreak has spread from birds to other species including cows, posing a broad risk to US agriculture.
Roberta Wagner, senior vice-president at the US-based International Dairy Foods Association, said: “We believe losing global surveillance and early warning capabilities related to avian influenza and other global health risks puts us at risk, and we strongly urge the US and other governments to support these capabilities with the FAO.”
The USA Poultry and Egg Export Council said bird flu has had a ‘‘devastating impact’’ on global poultry and egg exports. A US withdrawal from the FAO could make it harder for US exporters to access international markets, chief executive Greg Tyler said.
The warnings add to fears over cuts to the US’s own efforts to combat its nationwide H5N1 outbreak. More than 31mn birds have been culled in the US in 2025 alone, leading to multibillion-dollar losses and sharp rises in egg and poultry prices — a growing political flashpoint.
The spread of the pathogen to all 50 states has triggered warnings that viral mutations could make it transmissible between humans and even threaten a pandemic.
The cuts have also created gaps in defences against diseases such as African swine fever and foot-and-mouth, Bechdol said.
The current bird flu outbreak started in the US — currently the worst-affected country — but has spread to every major poultry producer in the world apart from Brazil, according to the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council.
More than 50 US trade associations wrote to US secretary of state Marco Rubio last month, urging the Trump administration to retain its membership of the FAO and boost funding and deployment of US staff.
US agencies involved in managing bird flu have also been caught up in the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to slash funding of public scientific and health institutions, including reported job cuts at the agriculture department and the Food and Drug Administration.
The shrinking of bird flu monitoring efforts comes as scientists warn global leaders to step up their response. “More should be done to mitigate [the] spread of ‘bird flu’ to humans,” virologists from more than 40 countries wrote in an article in medical journal The Lancet: Regional Health, Americas, at the end of last month.
More than 70 people in the US have been diagnosed with avian flu since last year, with one death.
Other species are affected: since the start of the current outbreak last year, more than 1,000 cases have been confirmed in cattle in the US, according to government figures.
Globally, the number of new bird flu outbreaks surged by 91 per cent from January to February 2025, reaching 980.
Ted McKinney, chief executive of the National Association of State departments of Agriculture (NASDA) and a signatory to the letter to Rubio, said state-level regulators were concerned about US funding cuts not only to the FAO but also to the agriculture department and the Food and Drug Administration.
However, he noted that much of the American agriculture sector comprises Trump-leaning conservatives who recognise the need for fiscal restraint given the country’s near-$37tn national debt.
Data visualisation by Clara Murray
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