While releasing an agency-by-agency breakdown of more than 15,000 Agriculture Department employees who took voluntary retirement, a spokesperson for Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an email, “President Biden and [Agriculture] Secretary [Tom] Vilsack left USDA in complete disarray, including hiring thousands of employees with no sustainable way to pay them.”

Asked to respond, Vilsack told The Hagstrom Report in an email, “The statement is unfortunate and untrue. We did expand the workforce at NRCS [Natural Resources Conservation Service] and the Forest Service at the request of farmers and ranchers who were part of a long waiting list for the technical assistance key to conservation and communities at risk of catastrophic wildfires. Resources under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act were directed to paying for some of the jobs created, and the general budget increases voted on by Congress provided resources. Some of the jobs were for a term and opportunity to continue after the funding from the Infrastructure Bill or the IRA ended years from now could continue based on replacing job openings normally generated from expected retirements. The current administration has made the conscious and intentional decision to rescind or freeze IRA funding and to reduce the workforce at both NRCS and the Forest Service despite the demand and need. The decision to reduce the workforce is one they own, and no press release can or should allow them to avoid responsibility for the impact of those cuts.”

The Rollins spokesperson added, “Secretary Rollins is working to reorient the department to be more effective and efficient at serving the American people, including by prioritizing farmers, ranchers and producers. She will not compromise the critical work of the department.

“As part of this reorientation, the Deferred Retirement Program, a completely voluntary tool, was used to empower employees to decide what is best for them. As of May 1, 15,182 individuals voluntarily elected deferred resignation.

“It is also important to note that on April 22, Secretary Rollins issued a Secretarial Memorandum exempting National Security and Public Safety positions from the federal hiring freeze. These 53 position classifications carry out functions that are critical to the safety and security of the American people, our national forests, the inspection and safety of the nation’s agriculture and food supply system. As the memo states, ‘Food Security is National Security,’ and Secretary Rollins will not compromise this critical work.” 

In an analysis, DTN/The Progressive Farmer discussed the cuts and their relationship to Trump’s proposed budget.

At a Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearing today, Rollins pointed out that the more than 15,000 employees who have left account for less than 15% of the USDA workforce of 106,000 employees.

Each year, she noted, between 8,000 and 10,000 employees resign. Rollins added that USDA wants to rehire “the frontliners” — the positions in the Farm Service Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Forest Service.

That prompted Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., ranking member on the full Senate Appropriations Committee, to ask: “So you let people go and you are rehiring?”

But Rollins responded that USDA told employees in certain positions that their applications for deferred retirement would not be accepted because they are essential.

Rollins said she believes firefighters are “ready for the season.” She added, however, that USDA is “bringing on new people who could be game changers.”

On the question of closing local FSA offices, Rollins said it is not her plan “to close any of the 4,500 offices that work with farmers and ranchers,” but to prepare those offices so that in the future there would not need to be so much of an office presence. The Trump administration wants to keep all the FSA county offices “fully staffed,” but “often hiring in rural America is difficult,” Rollins said.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., told Collins that it is important for farmers and ranchers to have “face-to-face contact.”

Describing the firing of probationary workers in the local FSA offices as a problem, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said, it’s good for communities “when young people in their 20s come home and raise a family.” Having a conversation in a county office about farm programs and conservation programs is different from having that conversation on a computer, Moran said.