The Agriculture Department has been rated by employees as among the top 10 best places to work in the federal government, moving up two notches to come in at seventh place in the 2017 rankings in “The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government,” produced by the Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte.

The rankings are based on opinions from more than 498,000 civil servants from 200 federal organizations on a wide range of workplace topics.

The rankings come from a complex algorithm that weighs responses to questions spanning from “is my organization a good place to work?” to “how satisfied are you with your job?”

Reacting to the survey, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said, “Our high-quality USDA employees work hard every day to provide the best possible services to our customers: the farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers of American agriculture.

“It’s our shared goal to be the most effective, most efficient, most customer-focused department in the entire federal government. And this year’s rankings show that USDA is also a great place to work and is improving every day. It is an honor to work alongside such dedicated professionals who make coming to work such a pleasure.”

The State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency were among the agencies whose rankings fell in 2017.