This post examines the devastating loss of experienced staff within US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development and the consequences for the agency’s ability to support farmers, rural businesses, and communities. As the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) continues to track the staffing crisis across USDA, Rural Development stands out not only for the depth of its losses, but also for the ripple effects those losses create across the entire rural economy.

This post is the latest in our series documenting the widespread staffing crisis underway at USDA and the compounding impacts of the department’s proposed reorganization. Each part of this series highlights how reduced staffing and weakened capacity are undermining core USDA functions that farmers and rural communities depend on every day.

Rural Development (RD) plays a critical role in growing the vitality of rural America. Through a wide range of financial services, technical assistance, and community-focused initiatives, RD supports job creation, business investment, affordable housing, infrastructure improvements, and essential services. A number of priorities for NSAC and its members are housed within RD such as the Value Added Producer Grants, Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program, Rural Energy for America Program, the Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program, and many others. These programs drive economic opportunity for farmers and improve quality of life in rural communities—outcomes that require knowledgeable staff, consistent program delivery, and strong local partnerships. As RD loses seasoned staff at an alarming pace, farmers and rural communities are already beginning to feel the strain of slower service and reduced capacity.

Rural Community Federal Support Severely Hollowed Out

The previous twenty years have seen a steady erosion of RD staffing numbers, leaving current staffing levels at less than half of what they were in 2005. In addition to steady staff attrition, Rural Development (RD) has been hit extremely hard by recent staff cuts, losing approximately 36% of their staff since January 2025. As rural American communities and farmers endure a period of economic hardship, RD is operating with fewer staff to support them. 

Figure 1: Rural Development staff

RD lost approximately 1,536 staff to the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). The DRP was a program spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce the federal workforce by offering incentives to staff who voluntarily resigned in early 2025. RD had one of the largest losses of any USDA agency, behind only the Forest Service which lost more than 4,000 staff to the DRP and the Natural Resources Conservation Service which lost approximately 2,409. In addition to the losses from the DRP, an additional 188 RD staff separated from the agency between January and March 2025, according to data from OPM. Separations include retirements, early retirement, transferring to a different federal agency, quitting, or any other separation from the agency. 

A Dual Loss: Experience and the Next Generation

The staff who separated from RD had an average of 13.5 years of service to the agency; however, this average masks a striking divide: turnover was concentrated at both ends of the experience spectrum. 32% of employees who separated had less than one year on the job while 31% who separated had more than twenty years of experience and institutional knowledge. In other words, RD lost both its most seasoned experts and the next generation of employees.

The impact of losing these bookends of the workforce cannot be overstated. Long-tenured staff hold deep program knowledge, trusted relationships with rural partners, and practical understanding of how to navigate complex federal processes—knowledge that cannot simply be replaced by hiring new staff. At the same time, the departure of early-career employees eliminates the pipeline of future leaders needed to maintain continuity and innovation. These staff losses will undermine the ability of the agency to serve its mission for years to come. 

No State Spared from Staff Cuts

RD staff, like most other USDA agencies, are predominantly located outside of the Washington, DC region, with less than 4% of RD staff located in Washington, DC. Rural Development is, by design, a field-based agency—its effectiveness depends on local staff who understand regional needs, maintain relationships with communities, and implement programs on the ground.

Staff losses have occurred nationwide, affecting every state and territory. Smaller states with already limited staff numbers were hit especially hard. Rhode Island lost 100% of their staff, essentially eliminating the agency’s presence in the state. Connecticut, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, and Idaho all saw losses exceeding 50 percent, leaving critical gaps in service delivery and severely constraining program access for rural communities. 

These local staff losses matter because RD’s work cannot be centralized or outsourced; it depends on staff who know local lenders, understand rural economies, and collaborate with community partners. This erosion of field staff undermines the agency’s ability to connect farmers and rural community partners with essential programs that strengthen local economies and expand market opportunities.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time in recent history that RD has been undervalued by its political leadership. In the last major USDA reorganization, during President Trump’s first term, then-Secretary Sonny Perdue demoted Rural Development, eliminating it as a mission area with a designated Under Secretary to advance its mission. This move was reversed in the 2018 Farm Bill, but Rural Development continues to be plagued by a lack of support and underinvestment, in addition to these persistent and acutely felt staff shortages.

The map below shows the percentage of RD staff lost in 2025 to both the DRP and other separations. Click on a state to see details and click “get the data” to download the data directly

Figure 2: Rural Development Staff Loss By State

Rural Development Losses Will Hurt Rural Communities

Rural Development staff administer a wide range of programs that serve not only America’s farmers, but also their communities, including loans, business development, housing support, and rural infrastructure. The loss of these staff across the country undermines the agency’s ability to promote rural prosperity and for the USDA to fulfill its mission. As the former RD director for South Dakota told Agri-Pulse: “It is really sad. USDA Rural Development is the only area of government that was really focused on economic development for small rural communities. So, it can be devastating.”

In July 2025, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins released a reorganization plan for the USDA, drafted without any input from farmers or other stakeholders. While the plan does not explicitly outline changes to RD, Secretary Rollins has publicly signaled that the agency may be a target for program or staffing consolidation while President Trump wrongly asserted the duplicative nature of RD programs, limited macro-economic impact, and the costly nature of delivery in his Presidential Budget Request this year. RD investments are, in fact, highly effective programs tailored to the unique needs of rural communities. 

Research shows that counties that received RD investment in rural broadband had higher business survival rates and better employment outcomes than those that did not receive the investments. Research also consistently shows that RD supports farm viability by diversifying farm revenue with value-added products through programs such as the Value Added Producer Grants (VAPG). Analysis by the Economic Research Service finds that “VAPGs enable recipient businesses to reduce the risk of failing and to provide more jobs than the comparison group” and additional research finds that these funds help farm businesses develop their businesses more effectively than otherwise. Value added and local foods development like that supported by VAPGs are widely understood to be an economic multiplier for rural communities in which every $1 of federal investment is multiplied in its positive impact on rural economic growth. 

RD program support is already stretched thin, operating with 36% less of the staff than it had at the start of 2025, including the loss of many employees with decades of institutional knowledge. Any reorganization layered on top of this crisis threatens to deepen the damage and further erode the agency’s ability to deliver critical programs that serve rural communities that depend on it.

The post USDA Staffing Crisis: Rural Development Staff Cuts Leave Rural Communities Behind appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) traces its earliest roots to the farm crisis of the 1980s, when cycles in the global economy and federal agricultural policy combined to push farmers losing their farms into the national spotlight. The 330,000 farm families who lost their farms between 1978 and 1992 were, unfortunately, not the last. The total number of farms has continued to steadily decrease since then, with the loss of mid-sized farms at a particularly concerning rate.

Within the past couple of years, there has been mounting evidence suggesting a tipping point for farmers and ranchers not unlike that of the 1980s. Today, high production costs, unstable markets, and low crop prices driven by uncertain export markets and overproduction have converged to create an economic climate in which farmers’ livelihoods are threatened. Earlier this year, hundreds of farmers – reportedly more than 500 – attended a single meeting to ask for help. Moments of farm crisis – like the one we are in now – stand out from the decades-long drumbeat of farm losses across agriculture.

While the current threat of farm loss is driven by global economies and issues far outside of farmers’ control, the fate of farm families is and will continue to be determined by the structure of US federal farm programs. Agriculture will always have disruptive events, from market disruptions and natural disasters to pandemics and pests. Yet the structure of federal policy determines the impact of those disruptions on farm families, their communities, the land, and the country. Too often federal programs have been structured to amplify the benefits of scale, while further eroding the strength of our communities.

Keeping farmers on the land is in NSAC’s DNA. For decades, NSAC has championed policies that promote markets and production systems that build farmers’ autonomy and self-determination and lessen their vulnerability to disasters. Today, federal policy can still be a vehicle to build a truly sustainable, just agricultural economy – one that sustains farm families and livelihoods, protects natural resources, and supports communities nationwide. 

This blog post offers an in-depth examination of the current state of the US farm economy, the impacts of a down farm economy, and the federal policy solutions necessary to put the US agricultural economy – and the farmers, ranchers, and communities who depend on it – on firm footing for the future.

• The Current Farm Economy
• Impacts to Individuals, Families, and Communities
• Comprehensive and Proactive Solutions
• What Comes Next

The Current Farm Economy

The US farm economy can be exceedingly complex to navigate. Nationwide, there are more than 1.9 million farms. These farms – from rural communities to urban centers and everywhere in between – are incredibly diverse in almost every way imaginable. 

The overwhelming majority of US crop production is represented by just two commodities – corn and soybeans – which were planted on roughly 175 million total acres in 2023. Broadening the scope slightly, wheat (50 million acres) and cotton (10 million acres) enter the picture. Beyond row crops, there are hundreds of thousands of specialty crop farmers in the US, growing almost every imaginable variety of fruit, nut, and vegetable. In 2023, 4.3 million acres were devoted to vegetables and just over 6 million acres in orchard production. Meanwhile, 568,972 farms – roughly 30% of all US farms – specialized in cattle or dairy production in 2022. Another 19% of US farms specialize in other livestock: hogs and pigs, poultry and eggs, sheep and goats, and beyond.

Each farmer must build their own business model – factoring in their unique scale, type of production, and market – to achieve success and longevity. Each of these factors carries with it its own risks and opportunities for growth and stability. Consequently, it’s important to note that farmers can have significantly divergent experiences within the same farm economy. Some may be particularly well positioned to navigate a challenging economy thanks to their strategy or even where they farm, while others may have an entirely different experience.

Yet all farmers – whether they are raising livestock or growing row crops, specialty crops, or even both – face similar hurdles: namely, production costs, crop prices, and market access. 

Production costs

One of the most significant costs nearly all farmers face is for inputs – items produced off farm – that they deem necessary to their farm’s success. Some of the most common production costs include fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds. Determined in large part by global market conditions, fertilizer and pesticide prices are difficult, if not impossible to control with domestic policy, and recent turbulence in most global markets has only exacerbated the problem. In 2024, the cost to farmers of these combined crop inputs (chemicals, fertilizers, and seeds) rose by nearly $20 billion dollars (comparing 2024 to 2016). During that time period, pesticide production expenses jumped 42%, seed expenses jumped 26%, and fertilizer, lime, and soil conditioner expenses rose 44%. During that same time window, the amount of US acres in farms declined significantly, signalling that dramatic increases in production expenses are not being driven by expanded acreage. 

Crop prices

While production costs have risen significantly in recent years, nationwide, farmers are also facing low crop prices. Since the peak highs in 2021 and 2022, crop prices for corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton have all fallen significantly – corn, soybeans, and wheat are all down more than 50% per bushel, while cotton is down more than 40%. On the back of these low prices, total crop cash receipts – including receipts from farm products like fruits and nuts – are forecast to decrease $6.1 billion (2.5 percent) in 2025. When focusing on some of the most prevalent row crops, we see that the combined cash receipts are even lower – corn, soybeans and wheat are forecast to fall by $6.8 billion in 2025.

Similarly, many specialty crop prices have either dropped or failed to keep pace with the rising production costs highlighted above. Cash receipts for vegetables and melons are forecast to be $520 million lower in 2025 than in 2024 and nearly $1B lower than 2023. At the same time, specialty crop producers have faced increasing production and labor costs. Specialty crop farms also have the highest labor costs as a portion of total cash expenses and are particularly affected by rising labor costs and labor shortages. 

The factors driving low prices are, of course, multifaceted. Farm policies and economic structures incentivize maximizing yield, which often result in overproduction of major US crops – corn, soybeans, wheat – creating a price glut that quickly and severely depresses prices for producers. Similarly, unstable domestic and international market access also impacts the price that farmers receive.

Market access

The US agricultural economy is heavily reliant on international markets. From livestock to grains, commodity production in the US has long exceeded domestic demand for the majority of major commodities. Because domestic demand is exceeded, the US agricultural economy relies on – and is exposed to – often volatile international markets. Sudden changes to trade rules and tariffs have made our usual buyers – like China and Argentina – nervous. Because they cannot reliably count on us, they are now buying from other countries instead. This has introduced significant uncertainty for farmers about markets and dropped crop prices – soybean sales are down 23% from the same time last year because of lower prices. While recently announced trade deals could shift this trend, legitimate uncertainties remain.

Instability of Federal Partnership

Finally, it is worth stating that 2025 has brought unprecedented instability in federal partnership. Although stability is essential for farm planning, farmers have experienced unexpected contract cuts and unpredictable, abrupt trade policy shifts. In January 2025, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) began freezing and even terminating the lawfully held contracts of farmers and farmer-serving organizations, disrupting planning for the 2025 planting season.

From commodity farmers selling into international markets to specialty growers selling at a market down the street, collectively, these freezes and terminations have been felt across all scales and types of American agriculture. Each farmer develops their own unique financing strategy, and federal programs can be an essential piece in the puzzle to demonstrate stable income for the year. But when federal contracts are frozen or terminated with little warning, it not only casts doubt on government dependability, it ultimately undercuts the ability of federal programs to serve as a stable support for farmers of all scales. The damage is much more extensive than just the loss of that specific income. Sudden loss of any source of federal support can impact a producer’s ability to work with their lenders to secure or maintain necessary lines of operating credit for the growing season.

This uncertainty has permeated federal programs throughout 2025, impacting programs that help farmers enter new domestic markets, adapt to natural disasters and add-value to their crop, and expand access to USDA programs and services. It has even jeopardized popular farmer-led programs as recently as September 2025.  Over the summer, Congress passed and the President signed a budget reconciliation bill. This bill cut billions in food assistance and funneled that savings toward commodity payments, all while programs that support the vast majority of farmers and rural communities are excluded from the bill entirely. On top of all of this, USDA has lost nearly 20,000 employees since January while simultaneously proposing a massive department-wide reorganization without any input from farmers – both of which serve to undermine USDA’s support for farmers.

Sum of the Parts

When the tide of these baseline factors turns bad, keeping farmers in business – and on the land – requires a federal response that is finely tuned to the full range of farm and farmer needs.

By nearly any measure 2025 has presented American farmers with an array of serious challenges that, collectively, threaten farm viability nationwide. In fact, a recent survey of agricultural lenders indicates that less than half of US farmers are likely to be profitable in 2026. Yet, this moment of farm financial crisis is not particularly unique, and is just one in a long line of past and future disruptions. The ongoing loss of farms and the difficulty for new farmers to enter farming demonstrate where farm safety net programs have gaps, and how these programs are built to pick winners and losers. Farms going out of business is not a necessity of these disruptions, or even a function of disruptions, but a demonstration that federal safety net programs are not universal.

Over time, intentional decisions made by policy leaders have pushed many farmers toward narrow production choices that often make it difficult to diversify or explore new markets without sacrificing stability. Simultaneously, suffocating consolidation – among but not limited to input producers and livestock processors – leaves farmers squeezed on both ends. Taken together, these dynamics prevent many farmers – whether they grow crops, livestock, or both – from creating a business that can better buffer against shocks, and leaves them highly exposed to risk. 

Ultimately, in this model of agriculture, some years can be good, yet many years are not, even with government support: between 2017 and 2022, more than 140,000 farms were shuttered. Of those, 128,000 (91%) were smaller than 1,000 acres and 82% were smaller than 500 acres. Farms over 5,000 acres were the only category that increased – by over 5% – during this period. And no matter their size, farmers themselves faced “incredible financial, legal, and emotional stress.” Unfortunately, the impacts don’t end there.

Impacts

When the agricultural economy suffers, farmers suffer – ultimately, leading farmers and ranchers out of business. When a farm goes out of business, individuals, families, and communities are impacted, first and foremost as people. Rural communities have alarming rates of mental illness, depression, and suicide. Furthermore, farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, and the suicide rate has increased by 46% in rural America in the last 20 years.

The loss of farms also exacerbates land consolidation. While farm sector consolidation may carry some efficiencies in the aggregate, unchecked consolidation creates a fragile farm economy that is exceedingly expensive for taxpayers and siphons vitality from farming communities.  Data from USDA’s most recent Census of Agriculture continues to show a long-term, concerning trend of more land held by ever fewer farms. As farms go out of business, that land is often subject to development pressure, threatening to permanently remove it from agricultural production. If the land stays in production, it is often bought by a neighbor or corporate investor. Over time, this simple process leaves more and more land in the hands of fewer and fewer farmers. With fewer farms – oftentimes not owned by the farmer themself – the economic diversity and resilience of American agriculture is diminished, leaving it more vulnerable to shocks and dependent on federal payments.

Last but not least, during challenging economic times, not all farmers are impacted equally. Compared to established farmers, new and beginning farmers tend to have less capital on hand, making it more difficult to absorb and survive economic shocks like those presented in 2025. This fact threatens an entire generation of new farmers unless we act swiftly.

Comprehensive and Proactive Solutions

Clearly, farming is a challenging enterprise. Consequently, much of federal food and agriculture policy is rightly structured around supporting farmers when times are tough. The farm safety net – including federal crop insurance, commodity support programs, and disaster assistance programs – is an essential pathway for farmers to manage risk.

While the increased farm subsidies included in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill may offer some farmers short-term relief, relying solely on commodity support programs is not a durable solution to farmers’ financial challenges, in part because the current farm safety net has significant gaps in coverage and efficiency. Moreover, previous farm bill efforts, including the 2018 Farm Bill, proved that simply increasing subsidies has failed to stabilize the farm economy over the long term, leaving producers vulnerable once again. 

Yet even if ideally constructed, the farm safety net is just one aspect of building a thriving agricultural economy. Federal policy must holistically promote markets and invest in production systems that build all farmers’ autonomy and self-determination and lessen their vulnerability to disasters. Ultimately, we cannot afford to continue looking only at short-term solutions while ignoring the warning signs of longer term structural issues.

Rather, our immediate goal must be to keep farms in business now, coupled with a commitment to overhauling the safety net and building out financial resilience. While we face economic signals of farm distress similar to the 1980s, it is time for a fundamental change in how the US responds to those signals. To keep farmers on the land, it’s imperative.

Below, NSAC offers a non-exhaustive set of policy solutions as a starting point for what is needed in both the immediate and near term. Given the diversity of American agriculture, policy solutions may not apply to every farmer and rancher. For example, some may be tailored to commodity crop producers or livestock producers, whereas others are tailored toward specialty crop growers.

Collectively, these solutions prioritize keeping farms in business in the short term and building farm financial independence, self determination, and the ability to weather all nature of disruptions in the long term. These solutions – which reflect the importance of farms at all scales and of all products – prioritize farmers’ entrepreneurship, stewardship, and connection to their community while reducing dependence on taxpayer funds. We encourage Congress and USDA to utilize the full range of tools at their disposal, including government procurement, marketing, regulatory and granting programs, to increase farm viability in both the short and long terms.

The solutions are structured as follows:

• Immediate Needs
  • Farm Loans, Cash Flow Assistance, and Revenue-Based Relief
  • Rental Payments for Marginal Land
  • Enhanced Support for Input-Reducing Conservation Practices
  • Stronger, Reliable Markets for American Farmers 

• Near-Term Needs
  • Prioritize the Next Generation of Farmers
  • Comprehensive Federal Food Procurement Reform
  • Strengthen Regional Food Supply Chains
  • Build a Stronger Farm Safety Net for All

The solutions offered in this section are arranged as indicated above based on the immediacy necessary to keep farmers on the land. Immediate solutions include cash-flow and farm loan assistance, short-term contracts to retire marginal land, and stronger, more reliable markets. Near-term solutions include land access for beginning farmers, increasing market access for meat and poultry producers, comprehensive federal food procurement reform, and more.

Immediate Needs

Farm Loans, Cash Flow Assistance, and Revenue-Based Relief

USDA must provide immediate and near-term relief for all producers to ensure no farms or farmland are lost due to acute financial hardship. The structure of how this support is delivered is vital to ensure that no farms are lost, and farmland is not consolidated further into a diminishing number of larger operations. To ensure that all farms facing financial stress receive the support they need, USDA should:

• Provide loan support to any producer struggling to meet their next payment installment in order to prevent farm loan defaults. 
• Offer cash-flow assistance programs for producers specifically unable to meet payments due to interruptions or challenges in their cash-flow.
• Implement additional assistance payments with broad eligibility and payments administered directly to farmers calculated based on a farm’s revenue, rather than by crop and acreage, to ensure all farms can fairly participate in such a program.

• Ensure all funding goes to active farmers running the operation, not investors or non-operating landowners.
• Allow the use of Farm Service Agency (FSA) Direct Farm Ownership loans for refinancing other debt. 
• Require preferred guaranteed lenders to obtain FSA concurrence before initiating any foreclosure or asset liquidation activities for distressed borrowers.
• Authorize future loan assistance to borrowers who previously received debt forgiveness.
• Make USDA’s Distressed Borrower Set-Aside Program permanent.
• Increase the lifetime debt forgiveness threshold from $300,000 to $600,000 to align with the Direct Farm Ownership loan limit.
• Increase the microloan limit from $50,000 to $100,000 to make this key, streamlined financial tool more useful for a greater number of farms in filling financial gaps.

Rental Payments for Marginal Land

During extended periods of crop prices below cost of production, or exceptional market turbulence, USDA should provide producers with a stable source of income in exchange for conservation value. In this challenging farm economy, this short term source of guaranteed income will afford producers the chance to explore opportunities for new markets, diversified cash crop rotations, or a strategic sale of land. USDA should: 

• Provide short term contracts offering annual rental payments to producers who place marginal land in their operation into perennial cover. 
• Offer a maximum contract length of 3-years.
• Authorize USDA to enroll up to 30 million acres nationwide.
• Offer producers optional support for making profitable changes to their farm business on expiring contracted acres:
  • Offer financial support for business planning services to aid producers in building a value-added component to their farm business.
  • Provide organic technical assistance (TA) for those seeking to transition contracted land into organic production and obtain certification.
  • Allow for construction of infrastructure to support management-intensive rotational grazing on enrolled acres when they are returned to production.
  • Include a 1-year extension of rental payments to the contract holder should they sell contracted acres to a beginning farmer or rancher at the end of the contract.

Dedicated Support for Input-Reducing Conservation Practices

Commitment to soil health-building conservation practices offers a clear pathway to reduced production costs – namely by reducing fertilizer applications – and increased profits per acre over time. USDA should target support to producers eager to adopt conservation practices that significantly reduce the total amount of fertilizer they require, leaving farm businesses far more resilient to spikes in fertilizer prices. Congress should:

• Provide a large, one-time, targeted infusion of funding to working lands conservation programs, Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), requiring that:
  • The majority of funds must be used for Comprehensive Nutrient Management Planning (CNMP) on a wide variety of farms and all facilitating practices necessary to implement such plans.
  • CNMPs should be designed to achieve a reduction to <60% of current rates or <60% of LGU recommended rates for total fertilizer applied across the farm within the life of the plan.
  • A portion of the funding is used to hire NRCS staff capable of writing CNMPs and designing facilitating practices.

Similarly structured investments could also be provided, aiding producers in reducing their reliance on additional inputs like herbicides and pesticides.

Stronger, Reliable Markets for American Farmers 

Reliable markets, whether down the road or across an ocean, are foundational to farmers’ success. This is particularly true during a period of high production and labor costs and relatively lower prices. On the heels of the abrupt cancellation of domestic market initiatives earlier this year, federal policy must play an essential role in fostering the development of new, more robust markets. USDA should:

• Enter into cooperative agreements with states to promote state purchasing and management of contracts with local supply chains to fulfill the annual needs of local, federally funded nutrition programs, such as the National School Lunch Program and The Emergency Food Assistance Program, that are typically managed by USDA commodity procurement. 
• Invest additional funds in new market opportunities for small and mid-size farming operations by awarding states multi-year funding to partner with local businesses and networks to purchase locally produced specialty crops, dairy, and protein to distribute to food insecure communities.     
• Promote increased connectivity between schools and local farmers by authorizing a voluntary pathway that would allow schools the flexibility to use a portion of their school meal entitlement funding to purchase foods directly from farmers in their regions.
• Expand outreach for the Cooperative Interstate Shipment programs footprint to new states in order to expand markets for producers and processors. 

Near-Term Needs

Prioritize the Next Generation of Farmers

During a farm crisis, beginning farmers are often the most at risk. In these moments, the transition of the farm to the next generation can be an important tool to keep the farm in the family’s hands, and both are critical to keeping the land in agriculture. Facilitating a farm transition to a beginning farmer protects the land from development, and maintains the farm as an opportunity for a new generation of farmers to build a future and raise their children on the land. To keep existing early-career farmers on the land and to facilitate farm transitions to the next generation of farmers, USDA should:

• Provide funding for direct assistance and services at FSA to help the next generation of farmers and ranchers afford and acquire land by covering closing costs and down payments; capitalize infrastructure and site improvements; and acquire business technical assistance and farm viability training.
• Prioritize FSA projects that provide direct financial assistance to producers, involve collaborative networks or partnerships, and facilitate transition of farmland from existing to new producers.
• Waive farm management experience eligibility requirements for loan applications where the farm is being transitioned either within the extended family or to a current farm employee.
• Expand access to the Down Payment Loan Program (DPLP), especially for borrowers for whom the program will increase loan feasibility and loan approval, provide a 2-year delay in the start of DPLP repayment or repayment alignment with the new enterprise’s anticipated cash flow, and make down payment loans forgivable after 5 years for borrowers who stay in farming.
• Improve the ability of USDA to identify and address the barriers to intergenerational land transition and new farmer entry by reauthorizing the USDA Commission on Farm Transitions.
• Authorize FSA to make grants or enter into cooperative agreements to assist with heirs property issues, including the creation of Heirs Property and Fractionated Land Legal Clinics.
• Strengthen the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development program.

Comprehensive Federal Food Procurement Reform

USDA’s annual food expenditures represent an opportunity to address underlying causes of the farm crisis by creating markets that reduce production costs and support business growth and viability among groups underrepresented in the agricultural sector. Specifically, it means creating fair market opportunity for all producers, including beginning, young, veteran, and other historically underserved farmers and ranchers. USDA should:

• Open market access for more farmers and businesses to secure federal food contracts by developing criteria, and dedicating 20% of annual food spending, that consider metrics beyond least cost to reward producers who are using organic production methods and protecting our environment and businesses that purchase from underserved and socially disadvantaged producers.  
• Create a set aside within USDA food purchases to increase meat and poultry purchasing from small processors and small producers that increases over time to provide a stable market while providing recipients with healthy, nutritious protein products.

Strengthen Regional Food Supply Chains

A key element to promoting the integrity of local and regional supply chains – and thereby market opportunities for farmers – includes investing in the middle of the food supply chain, including critically underfunded infrastructure. Congress and USDA should:

• Establish state block grants to build states’ capacity to manage grant and loan programs for food supply chain infrastructure, including for aggregation and distribution, processing, and storage for specialty crops, meat and poultry, and dairy. 
• Continue investment in processing capacity. Together with changes to meat procurement policy at the federal level, this could provide stability to the domestic livestock and poultry sectors, especially independent producers who feel squeezed by a lack of competition in purchasers and processors. Providing a series of small grants, up to $500,000 per grant, to continue to fill gaps in processing capacity across the country would  support the expansion of domestic markets. 
• Promote a variety of technical assistance opportunities for producers that addresses barriers to farmers’ market access.  This includes technical assistance targeted toward food safety planning and certification, business development, and supply chain coordination.
• Build upon the success of the Dairy Business Innovation Centers by establishing regional technical assistance centers that provide business development and other forms of training and resources that fill existing regional gaps and promote growth in emerging sectors, with at least one center specifically around meat and poultry issues

Build a Stronger Farm Safety Net for All

All farmers and ranchers deserve a strong safety net that protects them in times of crisis. The design of farm safety net programs, including crop insurance and commodity support programs, promote a focus on yields and efficiency rather than resiliency. This system currently leaves out many producers altogether, particularly smaller, beginning, and diversified farmers. USDA should: 

• Improve risk management tools including Whole Farm Revenue Protection and the Non-Insured Disaster Assistance Program by streamlining applications, expanding coverage limits and options, and increasing access for small and beginning producers.
• Reform disincentives against the adoption of conservation practices that are perpetuated by federal crop insurance rules, and restructure safety net programs to support on-farm resiliency and reduce the need for ad-hoc disaster relief.
• Structure any supplemental disaster relief programs to maximize eligibility for all impacted producers, and ensure that payments reflect the true value of their losses through revenue-based assistance programs.

The post Keeping Farmers on the Land appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Farmers and rural businesses are still waiting to find out if they can access one of the United State Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) most popular programs, the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). This USDA program, which provides federal grants and loan guarantees for farmers and rural small businesses to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy systems, has endured a funding freeze, delays, and now a potentially fundamental shift in program functions.

On August 19, 2025, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued a press release outlining a number of changes to the REAP program, as well as to the USDA Rural Development Business and Industry (B&I) Guaranteed Loan Program. Specific to REAP, effective immediately, the memo outlines restrictions to the loan guarantee program and deprioritization in the grant program for ground mounted solar systems larger than 50kW. The memo also includes language that has caused uncertainty about whether grants can be used to purchase solar technologies manufactured outside of the United States. The impacts of these shifting priorities could be substantial, and the USDA has yet to provide any detailed guidance on how they will be implemented.

This latest announcement comes on the heels of a previous stakeholder announcement from June 30, 2025, that delayed the opening of REAP’s first grant application window for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. Fiscal Year 2026 applications were supposed to be open from July 1 through September 30 but instead were delayed and the new application cycle has not opened. According to USDA, the delay was attributed to the “overwhelming response and continued popularity of the program resulting in a backlog of applicants.” It was then expected that the FY26 application cycle would open on October 1, a timeline likely complicated by the current shutdown. To date, USDA has yet to issue detailed guidance for farmers, rural small businesses, and technical assistance providers concerning how the new priorities outlined by the Secretary for the REAP grant program will be implemented. 

This new uncertainty surrounding the program is compounded in light of recent events, when  farmers and rural small businesses participating in REAP endured a funding freeze that lasted several months in early 2025. The freeze was the result of an Executive Order issued on January 20, 2025 seeking to shift federal support away from renewable energy. In response, the USDA immediately froze all funding for the REAP program, including for those grants and loan guarantees that were already obligated. It was not until early April 2025 that the USDA finally began to release frozen REAP funding. This long delay led to frustrations and unanticipated expenses for farmers and rural businesses who expected the USDA to honor its commitments.

Program Uncertainty Leading to Mistrust and Delayed Farmer Support

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has been a longtime advocate for the REAP grant program’s ability to support farmers and ranchers in implementing their own projects to help them save money by becoming more energy efficient. The ongoing uncertainty and disruption to these programs have undermined the trust between farmers, rural businesses, and the USDA and threaten the future of this and other programs. During the period of frozen funding, for example, one farmer waiting on their REAP grant indicated they would “think twice about turning to USDA for help any time soon.” 

A grant writing firm that does energy audits and prepares REAP applications shared that  the current instability of REAP has taken a toll. The sudden changes and unclear guidance has put more than 100 grant applications on hold for this firm, representing over $20,000,000 in projects that have been stalled. NSAC urges USDA to provide more concrete guidance regarding how the new REAP priorities will be implemented and the program timeline. Without thoughtful guidance, USDA risks continuing to undermine this popular program. 

According to one REAP grant writing firm, “Many farmers are using decades old grain dryers this harvest because ordering new equipment was dependent upon potential grant funding that never came. Others must now restructure their finances to resubmit applications.”

REAP Is Broadly Popular

The REAP grant program is a well-liked, bipartisan program with a strong focus on smaller farmer-owned projects. Since its inception, REAP has funded more than 19,000 grants totaling more than $1.8 billion in direct support to farmers, ranchers, and rural small businesses to help them improve their energy efficiency and reduce operational costs. 46% of those REAP grants were awarded to agriculture, forestry, fishing, or hunting businesses.

Because of its ability to fit in unutilized spaces, decrease utility bills, and integrate with agricultural activities in agrivoltaic systems, solar is a popular choice for REAP grant applicants. According to the data from Rural Development, 72% of all REAP grant projects are solar. There have been approximately 3,378 REAP grants for solar projects with businesses classed as agriculture, forestry, fishing, or hunting. 

Looking at the descriptions provided of past projects, it is clear that, for the most part, USDA has an interest in keeping the grant program functional and that the changes described in the August 19, 2025, memo may have minimal effects on the majority of REAP grants.  Only about 152 projects of the 3,378 REAP grants that went to farms and agricultural businesses, maximum, would have been affected by the new limitations because they had ground mounted solar installations of more than 50kW.

Even among the small number of projects that would have been affected by the new rules, it is worthwhile to note that many were still farmer-owned and not on productive farmland. Although the solar projects may be ground mounted and over 50kW, they are not on land competing with agricultural production. Rather, they are in proximity to buildings or infrastructure, such as a Colorado potato farm’s 59kW array next to their potato warehouse and a Michigan farm’s 1.2MW system for their poultry and egg barns. Instead of a blanket deprioritization of ground-mounted projects over 50kW, USDA should consider the incredibly varied operations that apply for the program and support producers with options that work best for their circumstances, including for needs over 50kW.

Confusion Remains Over Implementation of these Changes

Without clarifying guidance, it remains possible that the REAP grant program could lose much of its functionality. In the press release, Secretary Rollins says USDA “will no longer fund taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland or allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in USDA projects” and, in supportive quotes, Members of Congress refer to “foreign-made solar panels.” The Department of Energy estimates that 85% of the solar modules installed in the US are imported, the majority from China. If guidance is implemented immediately in the next grant application cycle that limits imported solar materials, there are significant concerns that REAP will be impacted. With China responsible for a majority of the global solar market, domestic sourcing requirements could dramatically increase project costs, potentially pricing out the small farmers that REAP is supposed to serve.

Right now, producers are facing some of the toughest economic conditions in decades, and they need USDA programs like REAP that help diversify revenue and reduce costs to remain functional, reliable, and available. In the long run, investing in domestic solar manufacturing would benefit farmers and the US energy sector alike, but until such capacity is in place, restrictions risk cutting off affordable, proven technologies that farmers rely on. The press release also justified these revisions as a means of preventing solar development from displacing productive farmland. However, REAP grant data indicate that only a very small share of projects involved ground-mounted systems larger than 50kW, and among those, most were not located on high-value cropland. Farmers, especially those running small and midsized operations, cannot afford to lose access to cost-saving technologies at a time of historic economic pressure. If USDA wants REAP to remain functional, revisions must be carefully tailored to support domestic innovation without undermining farmer access.

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On July 24, 2025, US Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, issued memorandum SM-1078-015 outlining a proposed restructuring of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The plan was developed without meaningful engagement from farmers or other stakeholders. Since January 2025, USDA has already shed more than 18,000 employees, and the reorganization as proposed will likely drive thousands of additional departures.

Following mounting criticism, USDA created an informal channel for public feedback on the reorganization. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) urges farmers, advocates, and organizations to provide comments by emailing reorganization@usda.gov no later than September 30, 2025. However, NSAC remains deeply concerned that USDA has not followed the usual process of publishing a Federal Register notice for public comment, which is standard practice for proposals of this magnitude.

This piece is the third in a series exploring USDA’s staffing crisis and the potential consequences of the reorganization. Here, we focus specifically on staffing losses in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and examine how staff reductions could weaken the agency’s ability to deliver conservation assistance and financial support to farmers and landowners across the country. Our first post in the series examines staff losses across the USDA and states and the second examines the scope and impact of staffing losses within the research agencies. 

A History of Staffing Decline in Vital Agency

NRCS is the primary agency within USDA that delivers on-the-ground conservation assistance to farmers, ranchers, and landowners. Through programs like the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), NRCS staff work directly with producers to implement conservation practices that improve soil health, protect water quality, enhance wildlife habitat, and build resilience. NRCS provides both technical assistance and financial assistance programs. Technical assistance involves helping producers develop a customized conservation plan with suggested conservation practices that address their conservation goals. Financial assistance programs are voluntary programs such as EQIP and CSP in which farmers enter into contracts with the agency to provide financial assistance for adopting specific conservation practices best suited to their land and resources. 

Between 2005 and 2023, NRCS has provided $87.3 billion in conservation support to farmers and ranchers, with 61% of that spending ($53 billion) going directly to farmers in the form of financial assistance payments and 37% going to support technical assistance, according to data provided by the agency. 

Figure 1: NRCS Obligations by Type, 2005-2023

NRCS staffing levels have been steadily eroded over the past two decades. In 2005, the agency employed nearly 13,000 staff. By 2019, that number had dropped to just 8,914, a decline of more than 30%. Staffing partially rebounded in recent years, due in large part to dedicated efforts from the previous administration to hire and train new, young conservation professionals and improve producers’ customer experience. Total staff reached 11,623 employees in 2024, a major victory for producers who want faster service at the county level and more consistent access to technical experts. 

Both producer and staff sentiment on the need to have more hands on deck to complete paperwork and prioritize time spent evaluating resource concerns in the field have been well documented. A survey by the Soil and Water Conservation Society of conservation professionals – watershed coordinators, soil and water conservation district employees, NRCS District Conservationists, and NRCS Soil Conservationists – found that 90% of practitioners agreed that “high employee turnover among conservation practitioners negatively impacts conservation momentum.” Conservation professionals were clear: they were already understaffed before the recent losses. 82% of practitioners said that there was a need for “more capacity to provide farmers/landowners with technical assistance” and they consistently rated staff capacity priorities as the highest needs in their local offices. One practitioner reported: “We simply have more landowners coming into the local office requesting assistance with programs than is possible to assist without cutting corners with a soil and water district staff of two and USDA staff of two.” These concerns existed before the NRCS staff were gutted in early 2025.

Losses since January 2025 have brought the number of NRCS staff down to again approximately 9,000 employees, echoing the record lows of 2019 during the previous Trump Administration. The NRCS budget request for fiscal year 2026 calls for a reduction to just 8,000 NRCS employees. This short-sighted goal would leave NRCS woefully underequipped to disperse the historic increase in conservation program dollars provided by the recent reconciliation package.

Figure 2: NRCS Staffing by Year

_{*Current NRCS staffing estimate is based on the separations and DRP information. FY2026 staffing is based on the NRCS budget.}

Conservation Staff Have Been Wiped Out

The NRCS has lost nearly 1 in 4 of their staff since January 2025. The Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) offered buyouts and incentives to encourage federal employees to resign. At NRCS, 2,409 employees, 21% of the workforce, accepted the DRP. 560 NRCS employees accepted the first DRP in February 2025 and another 1,849 accepted the second round of DRP in April. 

In addition to the NRCS employees who left the agency via the DRP, an additional 182 employees (2 percent) separated from the agency in just the first three months of 2025, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. Separations include retirements (early, voluntary, or for disability), firing, failure to renew contracts, quitting, transferring to another federal agency, or other separation.

Altogether, nearly one in four NRCS employees have departed this year alone.

While the USDA has not publicly provided information on the staff who accepted the DRP, Charles Melton, a former staff member in the Office of the Executive Secretariat who himself accepted the DRP, estimates that it was primarily mid-career individuals with experience who left the department via the DRP: “What the DRP did was remove everyone who had twelve to fifteen years of experience or higher and took them out. It put a big donut hole in an organization that wasn’t fat to begin with,” Melton said. 

The loss of mid-career and experienced staff to the DRP echoes the losses seen following the relocation of the Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to Kansas City, Missouri in 2019. This recent experience showed that it was largely the skilled employees with more than ten years of experience who left both agencies. 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. 

These staff losses are not sustainable. They threaten NRCS’s ability to deliver timely, effective conservation assistance to farmers at a moment when demand for these services is growing. Annecdotally, NSAC members report NRCS field staff are often either late career or relatively recent graduates. This can prove quite challenging for producers seeking to adopt the most innovative conservation practices available, as younger staff tend to have less experience with agriculture itself, and staff approaching the end of their career may be unfamiliar with newer research on the effectiveness of certain practices. Capable mid-career field staff, with a mastery of natural sciences and a strong understanding of the realities of farming, are by far the most helpful to producers and the most difficult to maintain within NRCS’ workforce. If, as observers are beginning to warn, recent departures have indeed pushed out experienced staff, producers can expect several years of greatly degraded service from NRCS. NSAC strongly supports action from Congress and USDA to prioritize the hiring of mid-career staff and to make policy changes within NRCS that will attract and retain capable young professionals for long-term careers with NRCS.

Table 1: NRCS Staffing Losses 

NRCS Staff Losses Are In the Field

More than 99% of NRCS staff work outside of Washington, D.C.

The latest data from the Office of Personnel Management shows that just 105 employees out of the agency’s 11,623 staff in September 2024 worked in Washington, D.C. with the rest in offices around the country. These staff included 8,397 employees working as natural resource management or biosciences professionals and 1,313 engineers and architects. 

NRCS staff work in every state and territory, providing direct support to farmers and ranchers for their conservation planning and contracts, and every state has lost a significant amount of NRCS staff, as seen in the map below. Indeed, every state except three – Delaware, Michigan, and Arkansas – has lost more than 20% of their NRCS staff and 36 states have lost more than 25% of their NRCS staff.  

Figure 3: NRCS Staffing Losses

Staff Losses Exacerbate Farmer Wait Times and Service Disruptions

Low staffing levels and high demand from farmers and ranchers means that NRCS programs already have long wait times to enroll and many farmers who want to enroll are unable. Demand to participate in the conservation programs supported by USDA staff is extremely high, with tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers applying for contracts each year. Recent reporting by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) finds that less than 25% of the applications to the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) are granted contracts and only about 26% of the applications to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) are granted contracts. 

Even prior to this latest round of staff losses, NRCS staff were stretched extremely thin with very high workloads. The wait time between when a farmer or rancher applies to one of the NRCS programs and finds out if they were awarded a contract is usually six months and sometimes up to a year. Advocates, like those at NSAC member Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) that help farmers apply for NRCS funding, already encourage patience in navigating the process and caution farmers that it can be a long wait to find out if contracts are approved, and even longer before promised payments are actually received. 

The loss of NRCS staff is already being felt at many field offices and for farmers across the country. Speaking to public radio in Kansas City, a former NRCS district conservationist Jamey Wood said that: “Producers are requesting conservation plans so they can do better conservation work, so they can participate in conservation programs, so they can get financial assistance to help them do conservation…And now, and this is my estimate, you’re going to lose basically a generation of conservation planners.” Maine farmer Seth Kroeck told reporters at Civil Eats that the staff losses at his local NRCS office have threatened the technical support and contracts he has with the agency, saying: “There were two employees that were in that office that I’ve been working with directly on programs, and they’re gone…There were two engineers that were helping us on different irrigation contracts, and they’re gone. It’s kind of a mess.” 

Reorganization Amplifies Risks

The USDA reorganization plan threatens further disruptions to NRCS operations by consolidating its regional offices into five USDA hub locations, from where departmental agencies will be administered if the current reorganization proposal is adopted. Currently, the NRCS divides the nation into four regions, Central, Northeast, Southeast, and West. Each region is led by a Regional Conservationist, responsible for the agency operations, activities, and personnel in that region. 

Two of the four Regional Conservationist positions are currently vacant: the Central and Southeast regions. The planned USDA hubs in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah do not align with any meaningful natural resource regions or existing personnel divisions of the NRCS. Relocating regional duties to these new hubs will likely lead to further staff losses as employees choose not to relocate. This will also create further disruptions in the agency’s ability to fulfill its mission to serve farmers as they endeavor to protect our natural resources. 

What’s at Stake

Farmers and ranchers are facing unprecedented challenges. More frequent flooding and drought, degraded soil and water health, and intensifying economic pressures have placed America’s farmers and ranchers in extreme vulnerability. NRCS delivers both technical assistance and financial assistance to farmers and ranchers to tackle these challenges, but only if the agency has enough staff to deliver them effectively. 

Farmers rely on local NRCS staff to deliver conservation solutions tailored to their land, and staff losses and the reorganization risk hollowing out the agency as farmers enter a time of unprecedented crisis and need. For the foreseeable future, every dollar that ends up on a farmer’s statement of cash flow is going to matter, and that includes cost share dollars delivered through conservation programs. Now is not the time to weaken a single tool in a farmer’s toolbelt.

Beyond the money, conservation planning and practices can lead to reduced input costs for producers, making sound technical advice just as financially valuable to producers as direct cost share. NRCS needs to swiftly change course if it is going to provide both.

NSAC encourages all farmers, advocates, and organizations to share their concerns with USDA by emailing reorganization@usda.gov before September 30, 2025.

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On July 24, 2025, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins released a memo (SM-1078-015) describing the planned reorganization of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) staff. This reorganization plan was drafted without any consultation with farmers or other stakeholders. While the reorganization plan does not directly include planned layoffs or reductions in force (RIF), USDA has already lost at least 18,000 staff since January 2025. If the reorganization moves forward as planned, it will likely result in the loss of thousands more staff. 

After swift bipartisan pushback to the proposed reorganization, USDA opened an impromptu and unofficial public comment opportunity. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) encourages organizations and individuals to submit their comments, questions, and concerns regarding the reorganization to USDA at reorganization@usda.gov by September 30, 2025. NSAC also notes our concern that the opportunity for public comment has not been formally provided through the Federal Register, as is standard practice for proposals of this scope.

The dedicated USDA staff powers the Department to meet its mission to serve farmers and other stakeholders. Unfortunately, recent history shows that staffing losses directly reduce and delay USDA’s services to stakeholders. When USDA relocated the Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) offices in 2019, the agencies lost more than half of their staff. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), these staff losses cut the number of reports and articles generated by ERS staff in half, led to the loss or delay of several vital industry reports, and led to delays and suspensions of several grant programs and payments. It has taken years for the agencies to rebuild their capacity and attempt to replace the lost institutional knowledge needed to serve American agriculture and stakeholders. USDA must avoid replicating the problems of these previous staffing disruptions and further exacerbating the already ongoing staffing crisis at the agency. 

This is the first blog post in a series discussing the loss of USDA staff since January 2025 and the expected impacts of the proposed USDA reorganization across issue areas. This post sets the stage by examining the overall department staffing losses and the losses experienced by each state.  

USDA Staff Work in Your Communities

In recent years, USDA staffing numbers have hovered around 100,000 employees. In September 2024, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reported that USDA had 98,473 employees. Across Republican and Democratic administrations, USDA staffing levels have remained fairly consistent – George W. Bush oversaw the department’s largest workforce, while Obama trimmed it back – until the Trump administration broke sharply with precedent by presiding over recent steep cuts. The first Trump administration saw a historical low in USDA-wide staffing in September 2019 following the relocation of both the ERS and NIFA from Washington, DC to Kansas City, MO. While staffing levels recovered slightly during the Biden administration, they remained below typical levels, and the department has had little time to rebuild the lost institutional knowledge and relationships with stakeholders. 

Figure 1: USDA Staffing Levels

• Data from the Office of Personnel Management

USDA staff work in every US state and territory, as shown in Figure 2 below. Only approximately 4.6% of USDA employees are located in the capital region, with the rest of the department staff spread across the country, working closely with farmers, ranchers, and stakeholders. 

While the reorganization memo claims that major disruptions are justified to bring “the USDA closer to its customers,” the reality is that the overwhelming majority of USDA staff are already living and working outside the capital region. 

Figure 2: USDA Staff by State

• An additional 1,063 USDA staff work throughout the US, but their location was suppressed by OPM to protect employee privacy; 794 USDA employees work in US territories, and 336 outside the US. 

USDA Staff Has Already Been Gutted

USDA has already lost at least 18,000 staff since January 2025. More than 15,000 USDA employees left the department through DOGE’s so-called Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). The DRP offered federal employees fully paid administrative leave through September 2025 if employees voluntarily resigned from their positions. Approximately 3,876 USDA employees accepted DOGE’s first round DRP offer, and an additional 11,298 USDA employees resigned in the second round of DRP. Many of these employees have years of experience and irreplaceable expertise. 

In addition to staff who have resigned through DRP, approximately 2,827 USDA staff members separated from the Department between January and March 2025, according to OPM. These separations include employees who quit, experienced a “reduction in force”, retired (early, voluntary, or for disability), were terminated due to an expired appointment or contract, transferred out, or had some other separation from the department. The separated employees have an average length of service of more than 12.4 years, with 38% of separated employees having more than ten years of service. 

The table below shows the number of employees in each USDA agency, the number who accepted the deferred resignation offer, and the number of other separated employees. 

Table 1: USDA Deferred Resignation and Separations by Agency

1. The DRP data differentiates between general FSA employees and FSA county employees; FSA county employees are typically not general service employees.

Every agency at USDA has experienced staff resignations and separations. Some have been hit particularly hard, like the Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement (OPPE), losing 53% of its staff to DRP and separations, Rural Development losing 36% of its staff, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) losing 22% of its staff. Reasons for these disparities are not fully understood. Future posts in this series will explore these agency losses and impacts in greater depth. 

Staff Losses Are In Your Communities

Despite claiming to prioritize serving farmers and to “bring USDA closer to its customers”, 94% of USDA employees who resigned were located outside of Washington, DC. Every state and territory lost USDA staff during DRP, as the map below shows, and every state except three (Hawaii, Oregon, and California) had more than 10% of its USDA staff resign. 

Figure 3: USDA Staff Losses by State

• An additional 73 USDA staff in US territories also accepted the Deferred Resignation Program

Like resignations, 94% of the separations between January and March 2025 were outside of Washington, DC. Every US state and territory had USDA staff separate between January and March 2025, adding to the loss of vital USDA staff. 

Reorganization Will Further Undermine USDA Services

USDA staff are dedicated public servants who support America’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. They work in every state and territory and bring their expertise and energy to tackling some of America’s greatest challenges. 

Since January 2025, USDA has already lost at least 18,000 employees. These staff losses mean less capacity to serve farmers and rural communities. The major staff losses experienced during the previous relocation of ERS and NIFA led directly to lost productivity and poor service to stakeholders. Those agencies lost their most experienced staff, and it took years to rebuild their internal capacity. 

The USDA is already experiencing a staffing crisis which means longer wait times for farmers and widespread cutbacks to programs serving American agriculture. The reorganization of USDA will further devastate the department’s workforce and ability to fulfill its mission to serve farmers and rural communities. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has said that she expects between 50-70% of USDA staff to accept the relocation required by reorganization, indicating that thousands of experienced and knowledgeable staff may soon choose to leave the Department, further undermining USDA’s ability to provide vital services to stakeholders.

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While the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has not confirmed the number of employees that have already been laid off or their plans for a forthcoming “reduction in force”, staffing chaos has reigned at the agency for the past several weeks. The firing of nearly 6,000 probationary employees was ruled illegal and extensive terminations are being reported across agencies including the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), and Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), among others. USDA even mistakenly fired key staff responding to the current bird flu outbreak. 

USDA staff in all agencies provide essential services to farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. They administer and manage a wide range of programs and technical assistance that keep farms working and the agricultural economy functioning. In many cases, they are hard working, valued members of the rural communities they serve all across the country. This post examines what is at stake if USDA staffing cuts continue. 

Farmers, Communities Lose When Staff Are Cut

After waiting eight months for his NRCS job to start, Josh Hardin was finally settling into his role as a district conservationist, recruiting new participants, keeping contracts on schedule, and guiding farmers through conservation programs, when he was suddenly let go in the mass firing of probationary employees. In his region of Arkansas, farmers had gone years without a local NRCS office, and when he was hired, they were relieved to have someone who knew the land, the programs, and their needs. “Finally, somebody who knows what’s going on and knows how to help us,” one told him. But just as he was getting his footing, he was fired, leaving colleagues scrambling and farmers without the staff to support them. This time of year is particularly busy at NRCS offices as they prepare for spring deadlines to rank new applications and assess current contracts. Without adequate staffing, contract work has fallen behind, and farmers who had just started building trusting relationships with NRCS are now left without guidance. 

“One office cannot handle eight counties. Farmers and landowners cannot drive four counties over to sign a paper or have a meeting, they need to go back to their work,” he said, emphasizing how staff losses break vital local connections. Fortunately, Hardin is one of the many recently fired USDA staffers who hope to soon return to work after the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) determined that their firings were illegal. 

Stories like Josh’s are being replicated around the country as staffing cuts take effect. Agripulse reports that at least eight USDA offices in Indiana, six in Kansas, five in Oklahoma, four in Missouri, and three in Minnesota have no NRCS staff following the first wave of layoffs. Farmers in all of these states and counties are now guaranteed to experience delayed conservation planning services, overwhelmed staff, and a sense that the systems they rely on are unraveling. NRCS staff are essential for delivering technical assistance and helping farmers and ranchers implement conservation practices that improve their environmental and economic outcomes. They guide producers through popular and over-subscribed conservation programs like the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Cuts to NRCS staff undermine the delivery of these wildly popular programs.

NSAC member Renewing the Countryside (RTC), which supports farmers and rural communities in the Upper Midwest, says they are also already feeling the impacts of USDA staffing cuts. RTC has previously held events at USDA service centers as a way to “let producers get to know where the service centers are, who to talk to in which office within the service center, and help get the USDA faces familiar so that producers are comfortable when they need the resources.” Facilitating these visits has proven an effective way to connect historically underserved farmers to USDA. When they reached out to schedule a next group visit, however, RTC was told that due to limited staff capacity they would be unable to hold the meeting at the local USDA office. The senior state official encouraged RTC’s farmers to schedule one-on-one visits, but that can be intimidating for producers who are unfamiliar with the USDA. 

Staffing Cuts Cause Long-Term Research Loss

One of the agencies hit hard by the first round of layoffs has been USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS). NSAC member the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) reports that between 10-50% of the workforce at some ARS sites has been terminated. The firing of these scientists throws vital agricultural research into immediate disarray as the scientists who run the projects are unable to staff and support the research. These cuts have meant the immediate end of research with long-term implications for agriculture, like research done by Cornell PhD student Alex Lando who studies the potential for Entomophthoralean fungi which could provide a safer alternative to chemical pesticides. The loss of ARS staff and associated research will reverberate for decades and undermines much needed innovation in agriculture and forestry. 

Probationary Employees: The First to Be Laid Off

Employees in their probationary period, typically those with less than one year of service or two years in an excepted service appointment, have been particularly vulnerable to massive federal layoffs. On January 20, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo to all federal agencies that led to the firing of thousands of probationary federal employees. The number of probationary employees at the USDA and the extent of their firings is unclear as the agency has not publicly reported their staffing cuts. While the firing of nearly 6,000 USDA probationary employees was determined to be illegal, it is possible that the scope of firings has been and will be much wider. Using public data from OPM’s Fedscope federal workforce data, we estimate the number of probationary employees across the USDA is more than double that number, meaning thousands more critical staff may be vulnerable to cuts.

According to the most recent FedScope data available, in September 2024 there were 12,231 employees, or 12.42% of the USDA’s workforce, that had been in their position for less than one year. These employees were most likely still on probationary status and the number is likely higher considering that probationary periods may extend for up to two years for some positions.

Among USDA divisions, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) had the highest percentage of employees with less than one year in their position (17.42%), likely due to recent efforts to rebuild staffing levels following its relocation to Kansas City. The Forest Service (17.27%) and Agricultural Research Service (15.47%) also had high shares of employees with less than one year in their positions, suggesting that any widespread layoffs could disproportionately impact these agencies. 

Divisions with the highest percentage of employees with less than one year of service include (full table in appendix):

Geographic Breakdown: Where Layoffs Could Hit Hardest

Looking at employment patterns by state, USDA employees in the western US appear to have the highest likelihood of being affected. California had the largest number of USDA employees with less than one year in their positions (1,733), followed by Oregon (1,042), Montana (776), Idaho (734), and Washington (622). In percentage terms, Idaho (21.1%), Montana (20.8%), and Oregon (20.79%) had some of the highest shares of newer employees. These states could see significant staffing reductions if layoffs target probationary employees.

Telework, Return-to-Office Orders, and Additional Workforce Reductions

In addition to layoffs of probationary employees, on January 20 the White House issued an Executive Order requiring departments terminate remote and telework arrangements for federal employees. This will likely lead to further staff reductions if employees are unable or unwilling to work in-office or to relocate if their duty station is not local. 

According to the FedScope data from September 2024, 42.74% of USDA employees (42,086 individuals) were eligible for telework. While not all telework-eligible employees will leave their jobs if required to return to in-person work, even a 10% attrition rate among this group could result in more than 4,000 additional departures.

Divisions with the highest percentage of telework-eligible employees include (full table in appendix):

If USDA continues pushing for a full return-to-office policy, the loss of telework-flexible jobs could further exacerbate staffing shortages.

Implications for Farmers and Rural Communities

Significant workforce reductions at USDA will have far-reaching implications for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities that depend on agency services. Agencies like NRCS and FSA play critical roles in delivering conservation assistance, loans, and disaster assistance programs. A depleted workforce in these divisions could lead to delays in program delivery, reduced technical assistance, and weakened implementation of conservation and farm resilience efforts.

For example, NRCS has already lost a substantial portion of its 1,299 employees with less than one year in their positions, impacting the agency’s ability to process Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) contracts—two programs that are hugely popular and over-subscribed. Already, only about one quarter of CSP applications are funded each year. Staffing cuts endanger the recruitment, ranking, and support for these hugely popular programs, and will guarantee frustrating and necessary delays for producers. Further, NRCS, and FSA staff located in county service centers are hardworking, respected members of rural communities. Indiscriminately firing them only harms the social and economic fabric of small towns across the country.

Restoring USDA’s Workforce

Without confirmed numbers from USDA, we can only estimate the scope of current layoffs—but reports suggest thousands of employees. The impacts of the first wave of USDA layoffs are already being felt by farmers and rural communities. In an NSAC briefing on March 6, Adam Chappell, a farmer from Cotton Plant, Arkansas, shared his dismay about staff losses: “The NRCS in Arkansas, we depend on it. It has saved our farm a couple of times because it’s allowed us to implement programs and conservation that have allowed us to cut inputs like herbicides and fertilizers and things. And without them, I wouldn’t be here fighting the fight now. And we were already short staffed in Arkansas.” 

Plans for even more widespread staff cuts would be devastating and would undermine the ability of farmers to access the support they need, especially as tariffs threaten an even more difficult few years ahead. 

The administration’s indiscriminate staffing cuts have already had significant consequences, leaving farmers and rural communities without critical support. The USDA must immediately stop these reckless and indiscriminate firings and take urgent steps to rehire essential staff to restore its capacity to deliver vital programs and services across farm country.

Appendix: USDA Staff

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Editor’s Note: This post is part of a multi-part series exploring some of the key sustainable agriculture and food systems challenges that the farm bill can address. Through a series comparing the House and Senate Agriculture Committees’ proposals, we provide an assessment of how each chamber’s bill would address a given challenge, and our recommended path forward. Additional posts explore how the next farm bill can tackle issues in meat processing, crop insurance, organic and sustainable agriculture research, and more.

Seventeen million households across the United States – or one in eight – experienced food insecurity in 2022. The farm bill is the piece of federal legislation that provides a critical lifeline for seniors, individuals, and families who cannot readily access the food they need. 

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has a longstanding history of advocating for win-win programs and initiatives that allow families to utilize their federal nutrition benefits in direct marketing settings, like farmers’ markets and farm stands, while simultaneously generating revenue for small, beginning, and local farmers.  

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Congress relied on these initiatives to reach vulnerable communities everywhere by increasing the financial benefit for families, providing flexibility in program delivery, and funneling excess agricultural products into emergency feeding services. These decisions paid off. Food insecurity rates decreased while programs were in full effect. But as additional benefits and programs expired in 2022, food insecurity increased again to a level higher than any previous single year since the Great Recession in 2008. These rates have continued to climb in 2023 and are signaling significant food affordability issues for families. 

As Congress is in the middle of reauthorizing the farm bill, they have an opportunity to ensure programs have sufficient funding to meet the growing needs among families and ensure accessible market opportunities for farmers. Current proposals in both the House and Senate attempt to address this issue to varying degrees. While both offer funding increases, only the Senate includes solutions to eliminate persistent barriers to participation and offers sustainable approaches for local food system development.

The Senate’s proposal addresses food access and affordability in a number of ways that provide autonomy to households and increase spending with small farmers and local markets. 

• It responds to insufficient funding for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program that has left numerous states and Tribes from being able to participate by providing $100 million over 10 years and prioritizing underserved areas. 
• It recognizes the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program’s (GusNIP) efficient and effective approach to increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among participants and promotes program expansion by scaling funding by $750 million over ten years, increasing the federal cost-share, and offering pathways for cooperative agreements with partners who have the capacity to implement state-wide programs. 
• It also directs the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to streamline vendor program applications so farmers can readily participate in programs that currently often require four separate applications. This in turn will ensure federal nutrition benefits can be easily used in direct-marketing settings.
• It permanently authorizes the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program whose primary purpose is to strengthen local supply chains and promote new market opportunities for underserved farmers, but also encourages local control over the types of foods reaching food banks and pantries, creating greater consumer satisfaction. 

The House approach in the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 (FFNSA, HR 8467) also increases resources for programs targeting food security and nutrition within low-access areas, though not to the levels truly needed to address demand. Moreover, the FFNSA sorely missed the opportunity to create programs that generate simultaneous benefits for our nation’s farmers.

• It provides an additional $2 million annually for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which will not be enough to ensure all interested states and Tribes can participate.
• It seeks to expand nutrition incentive offerings through GusNIP by offering a match waiver for persistent poverty areas and increasing funding to $75 million annually, which will take an incremental approach to improving program access. 

It ignores the momentum and success of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program and instead of authorizing a permanent program, it creates an entirely new Food Box Pilot Program that unfortunately resembles the disappointing Farmers to Families Food Box Program that ended in May 2021 after a number of incidences of not adequately serving communities or the small and mid-sized farmers heavily impacted by COVID-19.

The Final Path

The unique timing of this farm bill offers an opportunity for Congress to reflect on the tumultuous years of the COVID-19 pandemic and on the effectiveness of established and novel programs in meeting the nutrition and food security needs of our communities. It is imperative that the farm bill provides flexibility and autonomy for consumers utilizing their nutrition benefits and that farmers and local markets have ready access to benefit from the billions of federal dollars invested in these programs. That means a final farm bill must: 

• Ensure enough funding is available for all states and Tribes to participate in impactful senior nutrition programs while providing program model and implementation flexibility to meet unique rural needs, 
• Promote the expansion of highly popular and effective nutrition incentive programs by lowering the match requirements, encouraging statewide applications, and providing sufficient investment for adequate scale, 
• Identify barriers to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program modernization in farmers markets, roadside stands, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and invest in solutions that ensure local farmers can readily access the market opportunity, 
• Invest in localized food access solutions such as the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program that support the viability of local farmers and increase the availability of high quality local and culturally appropriate foods in food pantries and other emergency food settings. 

The post Path to a New Farm Bill: Increasing Access and Affordability in Local Food Systems appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Kenneth Palmer, an Emerson National Hunger Fellow currently working with NSAC.

Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development (RD) announced that it will partner with Reinvestment Fund, a national mission-driven financial institution, to fund 16 public-private partnerships. As an expansion of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), the Local and Regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships Program (the HFFI Partnerships Program) will provide technical or financial assistance (including loans). 

This is the inaugural round of the HFFI Partnerships Program, and they awarded over $40 million in grants to 75 partners in 20 states and Washington, DC. This new program is partly funded through the American Rescue Plan and will be used to expand or create new Healthy Food Financing Programs. 

Program Background 

The Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) is a public-private partnership administered by Reinvestment Fund. The initiative offers grants and technical assistance to grocery retailers, cooperative businesses, nonprofit organizations, and state, local, and tribal governments working to increase access to healthy food in underserved areas. HFFI was established by the 2014 Farm Bill and expanded in the 2018 Farm Bill. To be eligible, projects must maintain or expand access to staple and perishable food in underserved areas and accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

Although the Healthy Food Finance Initiative was created in 2014, it lacked mandatory funding and was therefore not funded through an appropriations cycle until 2017. Even then, it was funded at much lower levels than it was authorized. As a result, Reinvestment Fund focused on implementing only a portion of the authorized activities – providing grants and technical assistance to eligible projects. This additional funding from the American Rescue Plan Act allows Reinvestment Fund to fully implement the initiative as intended, providing an opportunity to support regional partnerships to extend financing options.  

HFFI Expansion: The Local and Regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships Program

The Local and Regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships Program, also known as the HFFI Partnerships Program, goes beyond direct financial assistance to food retailers and offers grant funds for two types of activity: capacity building and credit enhancement. 

Capacity building includes: providing technical assistance to projects; providing funds for operating expenses to create or expand an existing HFFI food financing program; and researching food access needs in communities. 

Example: NSAC member Missouri Coalition for the Environment will facilitate engagement with farmers and lend their expertise in local food supply chain development as a member of the Missouri Rural Food Access Partnership, a recipient of this round of HFFI Partnership Program grants. 

Credit enhancement includes issuing loans and other financial assistance to food retail and food supply chain projects. 

Example: NSAC member Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) will assist the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry (DACF) in funding statewide food system infrastructure for value-added processing businesses, distributors, and retailers. The Maine Agriculture, Food, and Forest Products Investment Partnership received a grant through the HFFI Partnerships Program. 

Thirteen of the sixteen projects include both capacity building and credit enhancement activities. Three of the projects are exclusively dedicated to capacity building. Reinvestment Fund estimates that 766 total grants and loans totaling over $72 million will result from this program. Read about the projects that were funded in Reinvestment Fund’s Local and Regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships Program Award Book. 

Member Spotlights

Self-Help Credit Union, an NSAC Member, is working with the Piedmont Triad Regional Council and Partner Community Capital as part of Growing Food Finance in the Triad HFFI Partnership. The project offers capacity building and credit enhancement throughout the 12-county Piedmont Triad region in North Carolina. The project will focus on creating an equitable food lending system and prioritize underserved and rural communities and women and BIPOC-owned businesses. 

“Self-Help is looking forward to working with the Piedmont Triad Regional Council (PTRC) and Partners for Community Capital (PCAP) on this exciting new USDA HFFI project.  While program details are still being finalized, this funding will allow PTRC to build on its already impressive work connecting institutional partners and food projects by expanding their partnership with two regional food system lenders. The grant will focus on capacity building activities and credit enhancements with an emphasis on affordable access to loans.  We are particularly appreciative to USDA and Reinvestment Fund for all their work creating and helping secure much-needed funding for the USDA HFFI program,” said Self-Help Policy Director, David Beck. 

“The Appalachian Foodways Project allows us to work with locally-owned grocers and other food businesses along the value-chain. The project will focus on sustainability and growth through relationship building with the WV Rural Grocers Network, providing targeted technical assistance, access to low-interest loans, and even grant funding! We are excited to work with Partners in Community Capital, the West Virginia University Center for Resilient Communities, and the West Virginia Department of Agriculture – Veterans and Heros to Agriculture program. All of these partners help us to reach across the food and agriculture sector to connect farmers and value-added product makers with grocers and other businesses along the value chain to impact food and nutrition security in rural Appalachian communities,” said West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition Executive Director, Spencer Moss.

In the upcoming farm bill, we must sustain funding so USDA Rural Development and Reinvestment Fund can continue to fund the full scope of these projects. 

The post USDA Announces Recipients of New Healthy Food Financing Expansion Grant appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net

Tel. 347.563.6408

Comment: NSAC Welcomes Further Investment in Regional Meat Processing By USDA 

Washington, DC, June 29, 2023 – Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) issued the following comment, attributable to Connor Kippe, NSAC Policy Specialist, in response to an announcement of the “Biden-Harris Administration Partners with Agricultural Producers to Promote Competition, Strengthen Food Supply Chain and Rural Economies.”

“The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) welcomes a new round of investment in the local and regional meat processing industry. This investment, through its focus on regional lending, will bring new avenues of growth to rural and urban communities alike. It will provide much needed choice for farmers and ranchers through investments in fee for service options and independent processing across the US. The relending program grants will help establish a resilient lending infrastructure to continue to fund smaller projects, as processing capacities continue to evolve and change. 

We acknowledge the need for focused investment to rebuild agriculture of the middle. We also look forward to continued investment in small and very small meat processing via the Local MCap program and the initiatives and reforms proposed in the Strengthening Local Processing Act.”

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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 and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Comment: NSAC Welcomes Further Investment in Regional Meat Processing By USDA appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The Farm Credit System (FCS), agriculture’s government sponsored enterprise (GSE), is a nationwide network of customer-owned lenders with a mission to support rural communities and agriculture. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) 2023 Farm Bill Platform includes a proposal that requires FCS, agriculture’s GSE, to grant 15 percent of its annual profits to support underserved producers and food systems enterprises. These grants will build upon successful programs already facilitated by some Farm Credit associations and help fulfill its mission and public mandate to serve young, beginning, and small farmers and ranchers. 

Background

FCS is one of the country’s biggest lenders for agriculture and rural communities, holding approximately 44 percent of farm debt. A quasi-private lender, Farm Credit’s GSE status includes significant tax advantages and lower costs of funds due to its implied federal government guarantee. In 2022 Farm Credit reported $7.3 billion in net income, reflecting these GSE advantages. Last year, with our proposal, a 15 percent grant would have equaled almost $1.1 billion flowing to rural communities.

An FCS grant program is in-line with what Congress requires of our nation’s housing GSEs. Congress mandates high-impact grant programs from the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs), Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac. The FHLBs’  Affordable Housing Program (AHP) has granted over $6 billion in grants while arguably strengthening the GSEs. In fact, the FHLBs did not oppose an effort in Congress last year to increase the grant requirement to 15 percent of annual net income. Some FHLBs, such as Chicago, are voluntarily increasing their grant program contributions. 

Of note, a University of Florida study on the economic benefits of FHLB-Atlanta’s AHP found that “for every $1 million invested in AHP, $14.3 million of housing is constructed or rehabilitated and 158 jobs are created.” When including the economic multiplier effect, every $1 million of AHP helps generate $24.6 million in economic activity. A 2018 Florida State University study of all FHLB AHP programs found that “… for every dollar of AHP-enhanced funding, there is a multiplier effect of $33.68 in Rental, Home Construction and Rehabilitation, and of $30.04 in Home Purchases.” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are required to grant 4.2 basis points (or .042%) of the principal balance of new loan purchases to the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund. The 2022 grant amount was $1.1 billion.

As evidenced by successful programs required of housing GSEs, a Farm Credit grant mandate will likely produce a positive economic spillover effect that could grow Farm Credit’s overall profitability and help its current member-borrowers by providing even more income to share.  

Existing Farm Credit Grant Programs 

Several Farm Credit associations already offer innovative, niche programs to support underserved farmers. A congressionally mandated FCS grant presents an opportunity for these programs to be replicated and expanded – which helps maximize the public’s investment in agriculture’s GSE.

Existing Farm Credit grant programs include:

• Farm Credit East, Farm Start – FarmStart makes working capital investments of up to $75,000 to Northeast agricultural ventures showing promise of success with limited financial resources. The program is primarily intended to support beginning farmers that do not qualify for normal lines of credit.

• Farm Credit Illinois, FreshRoots – FreshRoots provides lending assistance and learning incentives to farmers 40 years of age or younger or those in their first 10 years of farming. The program offers loan pricing discounts and vouchers of up to $2,000 to participate in business development workshops. In addition, each year FreshRoots Directors Cup honorees receive a $5,000 cash reward.  

• Compeer Financial, Beginning with Compeer Financial Grant Program – The Beginning with Compeer Financial Grant Program offers beginning farmers grant opportunities ranging from $250 to $2,000, depending on the relationship to Compeer. 

• AgGeorgia Farm Credit, AgAware – AgAware is a comprehensive business and financial literacy workshop series designed to promote and educate the next generation of young, beginning, small, and minority farmers. AgAware’s one-day, seven hour workshops are free to attend and address a range of topics, including budget preparation, risk management, succession planning, and more. 

• GreenStone Farm Credit, CultivateGrowth – CultivateGrowth supports young, beginning, and small farmers through funding, networking, education, and financing. This includes up to $40,000 annually in grants between $500 and $1,000 to support participation in educational events, as well as up to $60,000 annually in scholarships to incoming and upper-class college students planning to major in an agricultural field of study. 

• Farm Credit Mid-America, Growing Forward – Growing Forward is designed to help reduce barriers for new farmers by providing access to capital and financial education opportunities. This includes an annual Know to Grow conference, a two-day workshop where farmers learn to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their operations and network with other young and beginning farmers. 

These are some program examples that a Farm Credit grant mandate could grow by orders of magnitude. A congressionally mandated Farm Credit grant program should provide some credit to acknowledge existing grant programs, but these programs are only the beginning of what is possible given Farm Credit’s profitability and GSE advantages. 

Additional Farm Credit Grant Opportunities 

In addition to expanding the voluntary programs currently offered by Farm Credit associations, an FCS grant set-aside at over $1 billion presents enormous opportunity to exercise creativity when designing programs that support underserved farmers. For example, a significant use of funds could be downpayment assistance to help small, new and underserved farmers buy farmland. Additional grant initiatives could promote local and regional food production, or help farmers invest in the adoption of soil-health practices to build long-term resilience and improve their economic bottom-lines.

A team of Duke University graduate students framed several additional opportunities in a 2021 report. These include flexible funding direct grants for underserved producers, grants to help farmers purchase farmland, and financial support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions to promote agricultural research led by directly impacted communities. 

Local Advisory Councils comprised of community members, including young, beginning, small, and socially disadvantaged farmers, as well as Farm Credit customers and extension or farm nonprofit employees would ultimately be responsible for determining how funds are distributed by a respective Farm Credit association or district bank. This direct community engagement would promote equitable distribution of funds and foster innovative projects to meet real needs.

Congress created Farm Credit in 1916, the country’s first GSE, to support American farmers and rural communities. Over 100 years later, Farm Credit’s profitability – underpinned by its taxpayer-backed advantages – is a great deal for its farmer-members. But it’s of limited value to many farmers and food system entrepreneurs who continue to face difficulty accessing credit and who are not deemed eligible to become a Farm Credit member-owner. A congressionally mandated Farm Credit program would change that reality and help FCS more fully meet its mission. 

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