Tania Brenes-Arguedas (Asst. Director WPDN) and Angela Madeiras (NEPDN)
The Communicator: Volume 6, Issue 12, December 2025
In recent years, many businesses nationwide have found it more challenging than ever to maintain financial stability. To understand changes in the financial status of NPDN laboratories over the previous three years, some questions related to lab funding were added to the 2024 Annual Lab Capacity and Impact Evaluation survey that NPDN labs answered in January 2025. This article presents the responses to the following questions:
- Has the number of employees in your lab changed since January 2021?
- How has your lab funding changed since January 2021?
- How have your operating costs changed since January 2021?
Possible responses were: increased, decreased, no change, and don’t know.
A total of 73 labs responded to these questions. Sixty-five of these were in Land Grant Universities (LGU: 89%), 7 were in State Departments of Agriculture (SDA: 10%), and 1 was in private industry (P: 1%).
Overall, we see no nationwide changes to lab staffing from 2021 through 2024. Nearly one third of the labs (28.8%) reported a decrease in number of employees, another one third (30.1%) reported an increase, and the rest (38.4%) reported no change (Figure 1).
There were also no nationwide trends in funding. Slightly less than half of labs (46.6%, 34 labs) reported no change in funding. Approximately one quarter (25.7%, 18 labs) reported a decrease in funding, and a similar number (23.3%, 17 labs) reported an increase (Figure 2).
Of those reporting a decrease, details shared in the comment section of the survey included the loss of grants and stagnation or decrease in NPDN funding. Six of the 18 labs reporting a decrease in funding also reported a corresponding decrease in the number of employees.
Of those reporting an increase, details shared in the comment section included obtaining new grants and funding for special projects, charging higher diagnostic lab fees, and taking on more responsibilities within NPDN. Eleven of the 17 labs reporting an increase in funding also reported an increase in the number of employees.
As reported in two previous articles ( The Challenge of Funding Plant Disease Diagnostic Labs; NPDN Labs Face Funding Challenges ) operating costs have increased for a majority of labs. Of the 73 labs that responded to the survey, the majority (61 labs, 86.3%) stated that operating costs have increased since January 2021 (Figure 3).
Labs that reported an increase in costs cited the rising prices of supplies and utilities, equipment purchases, staff hires and salaries, and the growing cost of hiring students.
The two labs that reported a decrease in costs cited a drop in the number of samples received (and therefore a decrease in supplies needed) and the loss of one entire lab and its employee as reasons.
Together, these results show the challenge faced by plant diagnostic labs. With stagnating income and increasing operating costs, labs are struggling to continue providing their services. While some labs (23%) have been able to keep up with inflation by finding additional funding sources or increasing sample fees, others have had to reduce their staffing or, in one case, close the lab completely.
Nearly three quarters (72%) of the labs reported unchanged or decreased revenue. If this trend continues, we expect that labs that have been unable to increase their revenue are at risk of having to reduce or eliminate services they provide for their clients.
