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In a move reminiscent of past disruptions but at a much larger scale, the Trump administration is implementing widespread staffing cuts across federal agencies. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is facing a significant reduction, expecting approximately 30,000 USDA positions to be eliminated. About 16,000 employees have already accepted deferred resignation offers. This downsizing – particularly when coupled with office closures and relocations – threatens to undermine USDA’s capacity to serve America’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. 

Farmers already face long wait times at local USDA offices, often going months without knowing if their loans are approved or waiting for reimbursement for conservation expenses. Staffing cuts will greatly exacerbate these already long delays. While Congress can continue to authorize funds for farmers to cope with ongoing natural and market disasters, many may needlessly suffer without the staff to run the programs and deliver the funds. 

This post examines the disruption likely to result from USDA staffing cuts – whether by office closure, relocation, or resignations – by highlighting the lessons learned from staff losses during the previous Trump administration.

To understand the potential consequences of forthcoming staff cuts, this post looks back to 2019, when two of the USDA’s research agencies—the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)—were relocated from Washington, DC to Kansas City, Missouri. The result was not cost savings or improved efficiency. Instead, the relocation gutted the agencies, leading to the departure of hundreds of experienced staff, the loss of decades of institutional knowledge, and a severe and lasting drop in productivity and ability to serve farmers and stakeholders.

The loss of experienced staff dramatically cut the productivity of both agencies for several years following relocation, with the number of economic reports published by ERS dropping by half,  and NIFA being delayed in getting funds to land grant universities and unable to review scientific proposals. These productivity losses left farmers and stakeholders without vital information to make decisions and threatened the future of American agricultural innovation. 

With similar but more widespread cuts now looming, it is critical to learn from this recent history before the damage is repeated—at even greater scale. ERS and NIFA lost productivity from a relocation, some of which they were able to eventually recoup with additional hiring. The forthcoming reduction in force (RIF) will be much more devastating. The entire purpose of the RIF is to reduce staffing numbers, an alarming prospect for an agency that is already understaffed and struggling to effectively serve farmers and ranchers as we enter a turbulent and challenging time.

In August 2018, then Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced his decision to move both of the USDA’s major research agencies, ERS and NIFA, out of Washington, DC. After soliciting Expressions of Interest from potential new sites, in June 2019, it was announced that Kansas City, Missouri, had been chosen as the new location. Despite outcries from advocates and staff, NIFA and ERS officially transitioned to Kansas City on October 1, 2019. Subsequent inquiries from the USDA Inspector General concluded that the relocations likely violated federal laws requiring Congressional approval.

The damage from the relocation was swift. Both agencies lost more than half of their staff during the relocations, and it took years for staffing numbers to recover. As of September 2024, ERS staffing levels remained 15% below pre-location levels. While NIFA staffing numbers have recovered, the loss of experienced staff has had long-lasting consequences for both divisions.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report later confirmed that USDA did not follow best practices for evaluating the relocation, underestimated costs, and failed to account for the massive attrition and disruptions to agency operations.

Data from FedScope, Office of Personnel Management

The departure of experienced staff translated directly into reduced performance and productivity. According to the GAO, ERS’s output of reports and peer-reviewed journal articles declined by half from 2018 to 2020. A representative from the ERS staff union said:

“The current and projected attrition will curtail research data products that encompass commodity estimates, agricultural sector forecasts, food and farm economic and statistical indicators for U.S. agriculture, conservation, and food policy and markets.”

This lost productivity meant the loss or delay of several vital reports that the agricultural industry relies on. 

NIFA faced its own productivity losses, taking an average of 30 additional days to process and fund grant proposals in 2019 compared to the previous year. Several key grant programs had to suspend review processes entirely due to a lack of staff, as was the case with the Sustainable Agricultural Systems initiative. Perhaps most alarmingly, NIFA had not processed any payments for capacity grants to land-grant universities and other research partners until six months into fiscal year 2020. The GAO directly attributed this delay to the departure of seven out of eight staff from the agency’s budget division.

Both divisions experienced widespread workflow disruptions and lost productivity after staff losses, and these disruptions echoed for years. Each canceled or delayed ERS report meant a group of stakeholders left without essential information to help them navigate market decisions, and each delayed grant review or payment undermined agricultural innovation.  

Data from GAO-23-104709

ERS and NIFA did not just lose staff numbers during the relocation, they lost deeply embedded institutional knowledge and leadership capacity. ERS, in particular, lost many of its most seasoned staff. At ERS, 36% of the employees who left in 2019 had ten or more years of experience. NIFA lost primarily mid-career staff, with 24% of departing employees having 5-9 years of experience and 21% having ten or more years of experience. 

These departures changed the entire composition of the divisions. By 2020, just 19% of NIFA employees had more than a decade of experience, down from over 50% before the relocation. At ERS, by 2021, just 37% of employees had more than a decade of experience, down from 71% before the relocation. Politico reporting quoted an ERS researcher about the loss of experienced staff:

“It’s a gap that we can’t fill. We can’t hire fresh PhDs and fill that gap.” 

Data from FedScope, Office of Personnel Management

Early reporting suggests that the 16,000 USDA employees who have already taken the two deferred resignation offers include many experienced staff with multiple years of service and irreplaceable expertise. The loss of these experienced employees means that a wide range of programs to protect food and biosecurity, provide services to farmers, and other vital support for stakeholders will function less effectively and efficiently.

The current staffing cuts threaten to replicate these past mistakes on a larger and more long-term scale. With the USDA’s workforce already stretched thin, further reductions could severely impair the department’s ability to support farmers and implement critical programs. The loss of experienced staff and institutional knowledge will have long-lasting effects on American agriculture’s resilience and innovation.

The USDA employs staff in every state, territory, and the District of Columbia. USDA staff are experienced and dedicated public servants, with 47% of staff having been at the agency for more than ten years. These are the experts who administer farm bill programs, assist producers through NRCS and FSA offices, and implement research initiatives critical to our agricultural future. Their departure would erode federal capacity for years to come.

The staffing cuts underway today dwarf the ERS and NIFA relocations. With 30,000 USDA jobs – roughly 30% of current staff – on the line, there is the potential for devastation across all mission areas: commodity programs, disaster relief, research, nutrition, rural development, food safety, and more. At a time when farmers and ranchers face record natural disasters and market volatility, they need a robust and experienced USDA workforce more than ever.

The consequences of USDA losing its staff are already well documented. The relocation of ERS and NIFA drained talent and crippled productivity, conditions now at risk of repeating, with impacts that will be felt by farmers in every state. Farmers rely on USDA programs. Without the people to run these programs, even the best policy is just paper.

The post When USDA Cuts Staff, Farmers Pay the Price: Lessons from the ERS and NIFA Relocations appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

(Washington, D.C., May 13, 2025) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins today announced the appointment of Erin Morris as the next Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), which operates under the Department’s Marketing and Regulatory Programs mission area.

Since its establishment in the 2008 Farm Bill, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has advanced research that helps American farmers and ranchers stay at the cutting edge of innovation and adapt to challenges such as natural disasters. Farmers and ranchers depend upon NIFA-supported research that invests in developing resilient crops, innovative soil practices, and other science that serves producers at all scales. But this critical work is now under threat. 

A series of recent Executive Orders has placed NIFA’s research portfolio, particularly research related to agricultural climate resilience and adaptation, at risk. American farmers and ranchers are already on the front lines of the climate crisis, facing increasingly extreme droughts and floods. Terminating NIFA’s climate research would undermine its future resilience. In addition, the recently released FY26 Presidential Budget Report suggests reducing NIFA’s budget by over $600 million. It specifically calls to eliminate what the President’s office says is wasteful programming in NIFA, such as activities related to climate change, renewable energy, and more.

Research underpins every aspect of successful and viable farming, whether it’s a fifth-generation commodity producer looking to diversify their crop rotation, or a beginning farmer interested in tapping into the huge unmet demand for grass fed beef. NIFA programs, like Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) and Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), remain widely popular with farmers, farmer-serving organizations, and research institutions alike. The targeting of “climate related” research, as well as the continued attempts to cut public funding that supports agricultural research at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), puts American farmers at a disadvantage as agricultural research tries to keep pace with the growing challenges related to the state of the rural economy, soil health, and competitiveness of producers.

This blog post examines the scope of climate change research at NIFA, and the potential loss posed by deprioritizing climate change research.

Driving Climate Resilience in Agriculture: Insights from NIFA’s Climate Action Agenda

NIFA is the primary extramural science funding agency of USDA and plays a vital role in advancing agricultural research, education, and outreach to address pressing societal challenges. In May 2022, NIFA published its Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan, outlining an ambitious set of goals for NIFA to advance science and technology to tackle the climate crisis and its impact on the nation’s farming, ranching, forestry, fishery, and rural communities. 

Then, in November 2024, NIFA released the NIFA Climate Change Priority Team: Accomplishments and Action Agenda Report, highlighting their ongoing efforts to invest in research that tackles the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food systems. This recent report outlines major accomplishments in achieving those goals, such as integrating climate change into competitive funding opportunities and fostering innovation in climate-smart practices.

One of NIFA’s most significant achievements is incorporating climate change into its major funding opportunities, such as those within the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). These investments span research, education, and extension activities and support groundbreaking solutions like climate-smart perennial crops and methane-reducing feed additives for livestock.

Several key programs, such as the Foundational and Applied Sciences (FAS) and Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS) initiatives, have become hubs for multidisciplinary efforts, funding projects that integrate cutting-edge technology with practical farming applications. For instance, the FAS program Rapid Response to Extreme Weather Events Across Food and Agricultural Systems supports “critical and urgent solutions in rapid response to extreme weather and disaster impacts on the nation’s food and agricultural systems.” 

The SAS initiative supports transdisciplinary projects that focus on “mitigating, adapting, and increasing the resilience of agricultural and forestry production systems to climate change.” For example, the University of Minnesota’s Kernza® initiative is revolutionizing sustainable grain production by developing perennial crop systems that enhance soil and water health while supporting rural economies. NIFA has awarded approximately $36.5 million in awards through FAS and $525 million through SAS. 

Unfortunately, the SAS Request for Applications (RFA) is currently not posted and listed as “under review.” The termination or major transformation of this initiative would be a serious loss to developing a resilient agricultural and food system that serves American farmers and ranchers.

Figure 1: SAS Funding Awarded

In addition to new initiatives such as FAS and SAS, NIFA has invested in climate change science through established programs. In 2022, approximately 15% of NIFA’s total competitive funding supported research, education, and extension related to climate change. Climate research continues to play an important role in established programs such as the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI), Organic Transitions Program (ORG), and Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE). Unfortunately, OREI and ORG also do not have a current Request for Applications (RFA) and are currently “under review.”

SARE has awarded approximately $176 million in funding since 2019. While SARE is not solely focused on climate related research, education, and extension, it has a systemic focus on resilience and sustainability. 

Figure 2: SARE Funding Awarded

Established in 1988, SARE is unique in its emphasis on farmer-driven research and its regional approach to addressing agricultural challenges. For example, The Hawaii Good Food Alliance and partners are driving a project to address regional challenges like geographic isolation, climate change, and limited infrastructure in Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, American Samoa, and CNMI. They are doing this by delivering tailored workshops, training, and technical assistance focused on sustainable practices, such as soil health, agroforestry, and ecological farming, empowering communities to build resilient and self-reliant food systems.

NIFA has actively collaborated with other federal agencies to advance climate change science and solutions, leveraging partnerships to maximize impact. For instance, NIFA worked with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop programs like “Signals in the Soil,” which focuses on innovative sensors and soil-ecosystem modeling, and Future-Proofing Plants to a Changing Climate, which supports multidisciplinary research to connect plant sciences with field performance. Additionally, NIFA has partnered with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE Regional Resource Hubs to support the development of low-carbon bioenergy and biobased products, aligning agricultural innovations with energy sustainability. These interagency efforts demonstrate NIFA’s commitment to integrating resources and expertise to tackle climate challenges comprehensively. The recent Executive Orders place not just NIFA-funded RFAs at risk but also these innovative inter-agency collaborations. 

Looking Ahead: Continue to Invest in NIFA Climate Research

The 2024 NIFA Climate Change Priority Team Report is a testament to how NIFA has invested in innovation, empowering vulnerable communities, and fostering cross-sector collaboration to lay the groundwork for a sustainable agricultural future. The research supported by NIFA helps producers adapt and innovate in the face of increasing natural disasters. Gutting this research would undermine decades of scientific innovation and threaten the future of American agriculture.

The post Farmers Need Climate Research to Thrive appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net

Tel. 347.563.6408

Washington, DC, May 8, 2025 – Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)  joined 160 farmer-serving organizations from across the country delivered a joint letter to Congressional Agriculture Committee leadership, warning that cuts through budget reconciliation will effectively eliminate the opportunity to pass a new, full farm bill. The letter, sent ahead of the House Agriculture Committee’s expected markup next week, urges lawmakers to stand for a new, full five year farm bill.

“More than six years since President Trump signed the bipartisan Agriculture Improvement Act into law in 2018, budget reconciliation is poised to dash all hope for a much needed new, full five year farm bill. For farmers and communities across state and political lines, the loss of a new farm bill would be an unequivocal setback. We urge policymakers to step back from the brink and chart a path to a full, five year bipartisan farm bill,” said Mike Lavender, NSAC Policy Director. 

The expected budget reconciliation cuts, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, will weaken programs that sustain agricultural producers and rural economies while undermining nutrition assistance for children, families, and food-insecure individuals. The sign-on letter represents a broad coalition of farmer-serving organizations committed to preserving the integrity of the farm bill and supporting the countless communities it serves

Read the letter here.  

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/

The post Release: On the Eve of House Agriculture Committee Markup, Farmer-Serving Organizations Urge Congress to Stand for a New, Full Farm Bill over Budget Reconciliation appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.