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Editor’s Note: This series draws on analysis the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) conducted in partnership with Bernie Kluger, Managing Partner at Prospect Partners, LLC. 

Bernie has led strategic realignments, crisis recoveries, and major capacity-building initiatives in government, higher education, and the private sector. Prior to joining Prospect Partners, Bernie served as enterprise lead for organizational effectiveness and workforce development at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). At USDA, Bernie tackled complex multi-stakeholder negotiations that delivered results for the public, including a nationwide hiring surge that powered a $40 billion expansion in operational capacity.  Bernie holds a B.S. in Political Economy from Williams College and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.  He lives in Washington, DC.

This blog post is the third in our series updating analysis on the widespread staffing crisis across the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). While our previous post showed that all USDA agencies lost staff during 2025, losses of direct farmer-support staff at the Farm Service Agency (FSA) are particularly concerning as farmers face an ongoing crisis and struggle to stay on the land. In this post, we examine previously unpublished data on FSA County employees to show a troubling loss of local staff. 

Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, NSAC and our colleagues at Prospect Partners have confirmed that over one-third of FSA local offices experienced a net loss of staff by the end of 2025, with 42 offices ending the year with no FSA County employees. These losses compound cuts previously reported on other locally stationed staff in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) who provide direct support to America’s farmers and ranchers. NSAC urges Congress to prioritize reversing FSA staffing losses, ensuring that the local staff who administer programs passed by Congress to help farmers access the credit and other resources they need to build and grow viable operations are present in every community that needs them.

USDA reduced the number of front-line staff at the US Farm Service Agency (FSA) by 8% in 2025, according to data recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Over one-third of FSA local offices lost FSA County employees by year’s end, with 42 offices ending 2025 with no FSA County staff. Cuts to FSA County staff were USDA’s largest termination of community presence in over a decade. These findings build on federal data released in March 2026 showing widespread loss of FSA Federal personnel in 2025. 

Figure 1: FSA County Staffing Losses (Jan 2025-Jan 2026)

Many federal agencies, including the US Postal Service and US Small Business Administration, maintain local presence in the communities they serve. Among such agencies, the Farm Service Agency has a unique heritage of local presence, with over 2,000 reported offices nationwide in 2025 and a commitment to local input regarding who staffs those offices in each county. 

Every FSA office in the country is required by law to have an advisory board, called a County Committee, made up of local elected farmers and ranchers. Since the 1930’s, County Committees have provided grassroots input on FSA programs and hiring. Historically, approximately two-thirds of the FSA workforce have actually served as employees of these local committees, not the federal government. FSA’s locally employed staff are commonly referred to as FSA County Office (FSACO) employees.

This analysis focuses on changes in headcount among FSACO employees, who have primary responsibility for FSA front-line services and are relied upon by local farmers and ranchers to navigate an array of federal agricultural programs.

US farmers and ranchers ended January 2025 with access to 7,672 FSACO staff stationed across 2,037 offices in 2,012 counties. By the end of January 2026, staffing dropped to 7,022 FSACO staff, an 8% decline, across 2,018 offices in 1,992 counties.

• 89% of the FSA County staff lost between January 2025 and December 2025 were full-time, permanent employees.

• The positions with the steepest losses are County Program Analysts, a direct farmer-facing role where staff helps with “interpreting and explaining procedures, program regulations and forms to producers.” FSA lost 614 County Program Analysts between January 2025 and December 2025, the staff farmers and ranchers rely on most to navigate programs and paperwork. 

• Leadership took a significant hit, as well, with 122 positions lost among County Executive Directors and 47 County Executive Directors in Training between January 2025 and December 2025. These experienced leaders manage county office service centers and provide essential outreach to producers, “working closely with farmers and ranchers to promote environmental and economic growth and sustainability.” Major losses in farmer-facing and leadership positions remove a vital conduit between local communities and federal staff, leaving county offices less equipped to deliver the programs and support that American farmers depend on. 

Net staffing reductions among FSACO employees were widely distributed across rural America. Among counties that started the year with FSA County staff, federal data shows a net reduction of FSA County employees in 704 (34%) counties in the United States and territories. Staffing was flat in 1,122 (54%) counties, with only 232 (11%) showing a net increase. Among counties that started the year with FSA County staff, 38 (2%) counties ended 2025 with no FSA County staff, including three counties unstaffed in Florida and four in Texas.

Major agricultural states in the Midwest and Southeast lost the most FSA County staff during 2025. The largest staffing losses were in Illinois (51), Indiana (48), Nebraska (43), North Dakota (41) and Georgia and Texas (39 each). Smaller states saw steeper percentage declines, with the largest in Arizona (31%), Hawaii (25%), Vermont (22%), Wyoming (21%), and Rhode Island (20%). Minnesota lost 7% of its FSA County staff. Two states–Indiana and North Dakota–appear on both lists, meaning they lost both large numbers of staff and a substantial share of their total FSA County workforce. 

Figure 2: Top 10 States with FSA County Staff Losses (Jan 2025-Jan 2026)

The formerly staffed county offices that ended 2025 with zero FSA County staff are spread widely across the West, Midwest, and Southeast, as seen in the map above. 

USDA has historically staffed local FSA offices with a combination of FSA Federal and FSA County employees, the former being locally stationed staff who are employed directly by the Farm Service Agency. FSA Federal employee data, which the federal government published at data.opm.gov on March 4, 2026, shows that headcount declined among FSA Federal employees at more than double the rate of FSA County employees. Headcount among FSA Federal employees fell by 21% in 2025, compared to 8% for FSA County employees. 

Figure 3: Count of FSA County and FSA Federal Employees (Feb 2016- Jan 2026)

FSA Federal employee staffing levels declined in 45% of counties and were flat in 44% of counties. In that same period, 11% of counties experienced a net increase in FSA Federal staff. Nationwide, 127 counties lost all of their FSA Federal employees in 2025, reducing the number of counties with FSA Federal staff from 932 to 805. 

Figure 4: Net Staffing Change Among FSA Federal Employees in US Counties (Jan 2025-Jan 2026)

The FOIA data obtained for this analysis make visible what farmers and ranchers across the country have been experiencing firsthand: the front-line staff who help them navigate federal programs, manage paperwork, and access a safety net built over decades are disappearing from their communities. With 42 county offices ending 2025 with no FSA County staff, and FSA Federal staff declining at more than double the rate of county staff, the cumulative impact on local agricultural communities is severe. FSA’s heritage of local presence and community accountability — embodied in the County Committee system — was built precisely because federal agricultural programs work best when administered by people who know the land and the farmers they serve. That heritage is now at risk.

Congress must act urgently to reverse FSA staffing losses at both the county and federal level. America’s farmers are in crisis: trade disruption, volatile markets, and a string of natural disasters have put enormous pressure on farm operations of every kind. FSA County staff are the people farmers call when they need to access the programs designed to help them weather exactly these kinds of challenges — including the Emergency Loan program, Emergency Conservation Program, Farmer Bridge Assistance, and the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program. Every one of these programs requires local FSA staff to administer them. NSAC urges Congress to use the appropriations process and the Farm Bill to mandate and fund the restoration of FSA staffing to levels adequate to deliver these essential programs, and to ensure that no county is left without local FSA presence.

The post USDA Staffing Crisis: Losses Reduce Local Presence in Communities Nationwide appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends roughly $4 billion buying food at the lowest price possible, and American family farmers are locked out due to high volume and complex federal contracting requirements. Yet there is a low-cost policy solution that would unlock this existing funding source for more farmers to compete. 

NSAC members National Farm to School Network, Center for Good Food Purchasing, Food Corps, and National Young Farmers Coalition, in partnership with Friends of the Earth, Chef Ann Foundation, and Scratchworks, have heard demands from school nutritionists, farmers, and local food distributors. Farmers want reliable local markets, and schools want fresh, reliable, nutritious foods to serve to students. A school district in Arkansas noted, Produce purchased through broadline distributors is not as fresh as items grown and sourced locally. 

More than 450 schools, farmers, and nutrition organizations are requesting that Congressional agricultural leaders authorize schools to use their entitlement funding to purchase from their local farmers and ranchers. Read more below in a cross-post from the National Farm to School Network.

June 10 – As the Senate prepares to release its Farm Bill text, a group of 450 organizations submitted a letter urging Congress to improve the National School Lunch Program for farmers and schools through a new “Local Food Purchase Option.” This policy solution would create a new pathway in the USDA Foods program that would allow schools to use existing entitlement funding on minimally processed, locally sourced food. School districts, farmers, aggregators, parents, and nonprofits from 43 states and Washington D.C. have signed on in support. Together, they back this commonsense solution to benefit small and mid-sized American farmers and ranchers while improving school meal quality for students.

30 million children benefit from the National School Lunch Program each day. As part of this program, schools receive entitlement funding that they spend on commodity foods purchased by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This accounts for 15-20% of the food on students’ lunch trays, amounting to approximately $1.6 billion each year. However, many schools would prefer having the option to spend this entitlement funding on fresh, local foods, which they are limited by within the current program.

“We are surrounded by cattle farms and produce farms but don’t have the funds to work in partnership with them. Being able to use all or part of our entitlement funds towards a partnership would be a dream” says Janene Hatton of Scott County Schools in Kentucky. “The freshest food is transported within a few miles instead of being processed hundreds or thousands of miles away before reaching the plates—that’s the way it should be!” 

While there is interest, red tape and large volume requirements largely exclude family farms from participating in the USDA Foods programs. “We are a large-scale greenhouse grower of hydroponic lettuce in Central Mississippi and would like the opportunity to supply our schools with fresh, healthy chemical-free lettuce. The current local produce to school program makes it difficult to meet the requirements of supplying the entire state,” says Leigh Bailey of Salad Days, LLC, referring to the USDA DoD Fresh program, one of USDA’s current entitlement programs that allows schools to purchase fresh produce. 

Connecting small and mid-size farmers to schools is more important now than ever. According to the American Farm Bureau Foundation, the farm bankruptcy rate increased by 46% in 2025 compared to 2024. School nutrition programs can provide a lifeline and stable revenue source for these farmers, as was demonstrated by USDA’s COVID-19 era Local Food for Schools (LFS) program. However, the second round slated to bring $660 million over three years directly into the hands of family farmers was terminated in March 2025.

“When the LFS grant program was active, we built a network and strong relationships with schools across the state of Arkansas” says John Wahrmund of Wahrmund Farms in Arkansas, who scaled up his farm after USDA announced the second round of LFS. “We invested in a large walk-in freezer to keep inventory and meet the needs of school nutrition services in a timely manner. We received extremely positive feedback about our beef, and know that programs found our product superior, our service superior, and student participation increased. Schools would love to purchase from us and other local food producers if funding were accessible. These purchases would support our family farm, our local processors, and our schools fueling our local economy. Local food purchasing is a win across the board for farmers, schools, and communities.” 

Rising food costs are making it harder for school nutrition professionals to maintain these connections, keep quality food on the menu, and reduce the use of ultra-processed foods. Like Janene Hatton from Kentucky, many simply want more flexibility in how they can spend the funds they already have.

Signatories of this letter see a clear solution: open a new optional pathway within the existing USDA Foods program for schools to divert a portion of their entitlement funds to spend on local, fresh, and minimally processed foods. States can design their programs to best suit their contexts, whether through subawards to schools, contracts with food hubs, or a statewide solicitation for local food. This concept is modeled after the successful Local Food for Schools program, but without the same price tag, since the funds are already there. 

“Our food hub experienced a loss of $500,000 per year when the Local Food for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance programs were canceled,” says Peter Kraus of Iowa Food Hub. “Schools tell us they loved our products, but would not continue to purchase without the incentives. We can grow the food system when there are reliable markets.” 

If just 10% of Iowa’s entitlement funds were diverted through this program, it would direct $1.9 million of existing federal funds to local farms and generate $3.3 million in local economic activity, according to National Farm to School Network’s calculator.

Authors of this letter call on the Senate Agriculture Committee to create this new pathway in their version of the Farm Bill. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-AR) has said that the Committee will be introducing text in June.

“Many of our Network Partners, particularly schools, have wanted this pathway for decades. As we continue to advocate for dedicated funds to support local food purchases, more flexibility with entitlement funds is yet another solution to enhance the school food marketplace for family farmers” says Jessica Gudmundson, Executive Director of the National Farm to School Network. As the letter states, “this is a rare bipartisan opportunity to cut red tape, invest in American family farmers, and give schools the flexibility to build stronger local food economies.” With the Farm Bill window open, now is the time to act.

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About USDA Entitlement Local Purchase Option

You can learn more about the USDA Entitlement Local Purchase Option, read the letter, sign-on in support, and estimate the impacts to your state by visiting the website here: https://www.farmtoschool.org/policy/usda-entitlement-local-food-purchase-option 

About National Farm to School Network

National Farm to School Network is the leading voice for the U.S. farm to school and farm to early care and education movement, working as an information, advocacy and networking hub for communities to bring local food sourcing, gardens, and food and agriculture education into schools and early care and education settings. Learn more at: http://farmtoschool.org.

Media Contact: info@farmtoschool.org

The post 450 Organizations Push Congress to Unlock Local Food Funding for Schools appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Editor’s Note: This series draws on analysis the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) conducted in partnership with Bernie Kluger, Managing Partner at Prospect Partners, LLC. 

Bernie has led strategic realignments, crisis recoveries, and major capacity-building initiatives in government, higher education, and the private sector. Prior to joining Prospect Partners, Bernie served as enterprise lead for organizational effectiveness and workforce development at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). At USDA, Bernie tackled complex multi-stakeholder negotiations that delivered results for the public, including a nationwide hiring surge that powered a $40 billion expansion in operational capacity.  Bernie holds a B.S. in Political Economy from Williams College and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.  He lives in Washington, DC.

This blog post is the second in a series updating analysis on the widespread staffing crisis across the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), focusing on the Natural Resources Conservation Service. While our previous post showed that every USDA agency lost staff during 2025, staff losses in direct farmer- and rancher-serving offices are particularly concerning as America’s farmers grapple with severe and ongoing economic and weather disruptions. 

Staff in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) work directly with farmers, providing technical assistance, financial support, and guidance to navigate the suite of programs offered by the agency. Losses in these direct farmer-serving agencies mean that US farmers, ranchers, and landowners have fewer experts in their communities to turn to for assistance. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) urges Congress to prioritize restoring NRCS field staff capacity, as farmers facing increasingly unpredictable weather impacts cannot afford to lose the local conservation expertise they depend on to build environmentally and economically resilient operations. 

NRCS lost 23% of its staff between January 2025 and January 2026. NRCS staff work directly with farmers and landowners to identify conservation practices that are well-suited to their needs and local natural resource concerns. They provide vital technical assistance for farmers and landowners and help them apply for and manage contracts with conservation programs that help share the cost of conservation practices. 

The NRCS staff position that experienced the largest losses was Soil Conservationist, with a loss of 711 Soil Conservationists during the time period and an additional 283 Soil Conservation Technicians. Soil Conservationists are the primary field staff who work directly with landowners on conservation planning and implementation, and Technicians provide field-level support for conservation work, often handling site assessments, measurements, and installation oversight alongside Soil Conservationists. 

Examining NRCS staff losses at the county level shows more clearly how many US farmers, ranchers, and landowners now lack access to local NRCS staff in their counties. In January 2025, 2,386 counties across the US had NRCS staff working in their local county office. By January 2026, 141 of those counties had lost 100% of their NRCS staff. This means that farmers and landowners in those counties lost staff with local relationships and local knowledge, and that the remaining NRCS staff are now stretched thin over larger geographic areas. 

The map below shows the NRCS staffing levels for every county and the change from January 2025 to January 2026, using data from the Office of Personnel Management.

Figure 1: County-Level NRCS Staffing Losses (Jan 2025-Jan 2026)

Major agricultural states in the Midwest and West lost the most NRCS staff during 2025. The largest staffing losses were in Texas (144), Kansas (127), Missouri (105), Wisconsin (100), and Colorado (99). States with smaller starting NRCS staff saw deeper percentage declines, with the largest in Rhode Island (44%), New York (38%), Colorado (36%), and Maine (35%). Kansas, Massachusetts, Arizona, and Florida all lost 34% of their NRCS staff. 

Figure 2: Top 10 States with NRCS Staff Losses (Jan 2025-Jan 2026)

The picture sharpens further when looking specifically at five specific occupations most central to NRCS’s conservation mission: Soil Conservation, Soil Conservation Technicians, Soil Science, Agronomy, and Rangeland Management. Together, these occupations lost 1,178 employees in 2025, nearly one in five positions. One hundred thirty-nine counties with at least one employee in these key roles in January 2025 had none by January 2026. Kansas lost key conservation staff in 15 counties; Indiana and Texas each lost coverage in 10. Georgia, while not among the top states for total job losses, lost all key conservation staff in 9 counties — a pattern of losses spread thinly across many locations rather than concentrated in larger offices, leaving widespread gaps in local coverage across the state. 

The consequences of these staffing losses are already reducing farmer access to conservation programs. According to a recent analysis by NSAC member organization the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), acceptance rates for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) dropped sharply in fiscal year 2025. Only about 24% of EQIP applicants and 37% of CSP applicants were awarded contracts in FY2025 — a steep drop from FY2024, when approximately 43% of EQIP applicants and 54% of CSP applicants received contracts. NRCS staff are essential at every step of that process: they help farmers understand which programs fit their operations, support them through the application, and provide the technical assistance needed to implement and manage contracts. Fewer staff means longer waits, fewer applications processed, and more farmers left without the conservation support they need.

The loss of nearly a quarter of NRCS staff in a single year, including over 700 Soil Conservationists and Technicians, is not an abstraction. These are the people farmers call when they want to plant a cover crop, design a nutrient management plan, or try to navigate a conservation program contract. Their absence means longer wait times, fewer site visits, and reduced access to the technical assistance that makes conservation programs work. With 141 counties now entirely without local NRCS staff, the support net for America’s farmland has real and growing holes. 

Congress must act to restore NRCS staffing capacity before these losses become permanent. Farmers and ranchers across the country are navigating an era of unprecedented natural disasters, from severe drought to catastrophic flooding, and they need the support of local conservation experts who know their land, their operations, and their communities. NSAC urges Congress to prioritize restoring NRCS field staff, with particular attention to rebuilding the positions that form the backbone of conservation delivery. Every county that loses its last NRCS employee loses irreplaceable local knowledge, and the farmers in that county lose a critical partner in building the resilience their operations depend on.

The post USDA Staffing Crisis: Widespread Loss of Conservation Staff appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

As Special Envoy, Rich will serve as a leading advocate for America’s farmers, ranchers, and private landowners, helping ensure their concerns are heard and their rights are protected. He will engage directly with landowners across the country and work to address challenges posed by government overreach, activist pressure campaigns, and outside interests that threaten private property rights and the long-term viability of rural communities.