The Trump administration’s plan to uproot Agriculture Department employees and spread them across the US has the potential to shed legacy staff and impact food safety, welfare programs, and farmers themselves.
Congress, unions, and farm interest groups are among those pushing back on USDA’s plan to move more than half its staff from the National Capitol Region — including DC, Maryland, and Virginia — to five hubs across the country, comment letters obtained by Bloomberg Government show.
Democrats and advocacy groups raised many concerns, but even some Republican lawmakers harbor doubts.
“I have to express disappointment in how this has been rolled out and the lack of engagement with Congress prior to the announcement,” Sen.
The shift likely will push out senior staff with institutional knowledge, slow department work amid major policy changes, and leave fewer people available to tackle inquiries from lawmakers, lobbyists, and federal program participants, the letters warn.
The public had an Aug. 31 deadline to comment on the reorganization, feedback that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said will inform plans to scatter staff nationwide and shutter a number of USDA facilities this year. As of Friday afternoon, USDA had extended the deadline a second time on its website to Sept. 30.
Trump administration officials say the reorganization will move employees to more affordable cities and closer to people USDA serves.
Congressional Democrats criticized that pitch as ill-informed and lacking specifics, highlighting over 90% of the department’s staff already work beyond the Capital Beltway.
“This lack of clarity makes it difficult to formulate relevant comments on the proposal, especially if USDA is making changes to the reorganization plan without updating Congress or relevant stakeholders,” Senate Agriculture Committee top Democrat
‘Farmers May Needlessly Suffer’
Lawmakers and agriculture associations said many workers will quit rather than relocate, adding to the more than 15,000 department employees who left since January.
Trade unions specifically warned officials against relocating staff at the Farm Service Agency and Risk Management Agency.
Without farm loan or crop insurance staff “to coordinate the programs and support delivery of the funds in close consultation with political appointees, many farmers may needlessly suffer,” a letter from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Government Employees said.
A July 24 memo outlining the plan to relocate more than half of USDA’s 4,600 DC-area employees doesn’t mention plans for either agency.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden told senators at a July hearing the department estimates it’ll lose less than half of employees asked to move.
Numerous comment letters counter that expectation, citing a 2020 Congressional Research Service report that about 75% of staff in two USDA agencies quit over a relocation to Kansas City during the first Trump administration. Many who left occupied senior leadership roles, resulting in a months-long slowdown of economic report production and grant processing, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found.
“The hollowing out of USDA’s workforce is not a theoretical risk. It is a documented outcome, backed by workforce attrition data from the department’s last relocation attempt,” the union letter said.
Not all agriculture stakeholders showed the same level of concern. A National Cattlemen’s Beef Association spokesperson said the group had no plans to submit feedback, as did Senate Agriculture Chair
The powerful American Farm Bureau Federation said the reorganization could bolster local engagement with farmers “in some areas,” but encouraged USDA to keep employees representing every department branch near DC.
Food Safety, Animal Disease
The reorganization risks throttling responses to animal health and food safety threats, letters warned.
A relocation of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service employees could ensnare methods for tracking foreign diseases and pests key to minimizing trade disruptions, the American Association of Swine Veterinarians wrote.
“Now is not the time to restrict APHIS’s ability to rapidly and efficiently monitor, detect, and respond to emerging disease threats,” the association’s letter said.
The association also said relocating staff at the Food Safety and Inspection Service would complicate oversight coordination with Congress, other federal agencies, and foreign embassies.
Paula Schelling-Soldner, chair of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, said in an interview she fears the reorganization will encourage attrition at the already understaffed agency. She said her attempts to learn more from senior USDA leaders about the potential impact on food safety inspectors have gone unanswered.
“When he said they were talking to the unions that was false and misleading,” Schelling said, referring to Vaden’s July Senate testimony.
Weeks after announcing the reorganization effort, the Trump administration terminated the collective bargaining agreement covering food inspectors, citing national security.
Nutrition Access
One key element of the reorganization includes closing two of the seven regional areas served by USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, which operates the nation’s largest low-income food aid program.
Congressional Democrats representing the Northeast cautioned that state governments will soon need more technical assistance from USDA employees, not less, to implement changes affecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program enacted under a Republican tax and spending law (
“This expertise is especially critical at this moment as states grapple with how to implement the recently enacted changes to SNAP, including the new cost-share and time limits. And when it comes to program integrity, it’s hard for us to come up with an argument as to how error rates and retailer compliance will improve if staff are moved further away from the state agencies and retailers they are tasked with working with,” the letter led by Rep.
Anti-hunger advocacy groups share similar concerns.
Fewer available USDA staff may impede efforts by groups like the Food Research and Action Center to promote access to SNAP and other nutrition programs, Clarissa Hayes, the organization’s deputy director of child nutrition policy, said in an interview.
“Delays in critical services and gaps in oversight are more likely when experienced staff choose to resign rather than move, and when key offices needed for technical support are closed,” the center’s comment letter said.
As policymakers and stakeholder groups debate the reorganization, its rollout may take even longer to hit home for everyday farmers.
“I’ve visited farms across Ohio this month and spoken with dozens of farmers. Not one of them mentioned the USDA’s planned reorganization — which is ironic, since it’s supposedly being done to help farmers outside of DC,” Rep.
USDA didn’t answer questions about claims the department wasn’t engaging with unions on the reorganization, concerns about staff attrition, and how the department planned to address feedback. A department spokesperson responded only that USDA extended its first deadline for submitting letters “to encompass the entire month of August.”
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