Ag News

USDA announces reorganization plan

On July 24, the USDA announced the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which means moving much of its staff and offices out of the Washington, D.C. metro area.

The department indicated the move would refocus “its core operations to better align with its founding mission of supporting American farming, ranching, and forestry.”

In response, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) stressed continuation of services on which farmers rely.

“We look forward to learning more about USDA’s plans to create greater efficiencies within the department. It is very important that USDA ensure the delivery of essential services and programs for farmers is not disrupted. We will closely monitor USDA’s plans as more details are shared,” AFBF noted in a prepared statement.

Using what it called a phased plan “to relocate much of its agency headquarters and national capital region staff out of Washington, D.C. and out to hub locations in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Currently, there are 4,600 USDA employees in the national capital region; the reorganization plan calls for 2,600 of those to be moved to the hub locations.

As part of the reorganization, the number of regional offices for the U.S. Forest Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) will be reduced. All regional offices of the Agricultural Research Service will be eliminated with their responsibilities to be handled by the Office of National Programs. The current 12 NASS regional offices are expected to be consolidated into the five USDA hubs during the next several years. The Forest Service is expected to consolidate its nine regional offices into one facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, with the exception of maintaining an eastern service center in Athens, Ga., and a reduced state office in Juneau, Alaska. The FNS will reduce its number of regional offices from seven to five and these will align with the cities the five hub service centers will be in. The Natural Resources Conservation Service will align its regional structure to align with the cities the five hub service centers will be in.

The department plans to vacate the South Building in D.C., the Food and Nutrition Service office in Alexandria, Virginia, and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Maryland. The BARC will be vacated over multiple years to avoid disrupting research. The plan includes a review of utilization and functions in the USDA Whitten Building and Yates Building in D.C., and the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville.

BARC is home to research on reproduction and production for a variety of livestock, as well as combating long-horned ticks, food safety and other veterinary health issues. This includes work focused on dairy cattle, poultry, turkeys, swine and honeybees. Researchers there also study water quality and water use efficiency and plant genetics on blueberries, strawberries and soybeans.

On Aug. 1, the USDA announced the opening of the 30-day comment period, which runs through Aug. 26. All stakeholders, including USDA employees, members of Congress, and agricultural and nutrition partners, are encouraged to provide feedback by emailing reorganization@usda.gov. The proposed reorganization plan can be viewed here.

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