The Proposed USDA Restructuring Will Hurt Farmers, Not Bring the Agency Closer to Them
By Vinnie Trometter, OFRF Policy Manager
Record-high input costs, low commodity and specialty crop prices, and lack of access to markets are placing massive economic pressures on farmers. In January of this year, over 300 farm groups sent a letter to Congressional leadership issuing a dire warning that the long-term viability of American agriculture is under threat unless conditions change.
Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. The war in Iran has spiked fertilizer prices during the peak spring planting season, affecting the vast majority of farmers who hadn’t pre-booked their fertilizer. Exacerbating pressures, a record-warm winter in the Western United States is contributing to a drought that covers over 70% of the acres for many major commodities.
With this as the backdrop, the USDA plans to restructure its research, education, and economics agencies so they “can be closer to farmers” and coordinate better. Though OFRF has advocated for better USDA organic research coordination, this restructuring will only move the department further away from the producers it’s meant to serve due to lapses in service and the loss of USDA employees who fill important functions.
The major part of this proposed restructuring is to move more personnel from the USDA’s core research and data agencies—the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Economic Research Service (ERS), and National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)—to Kansas City and St. Louis. Though the most recent restructuring proposal claims there will be no job losses or disruption to farmers’ services, recent history suggests otherwise. After NIFA and ERS were relocated to Kansas City in 2019 during the first Trump administration, about 75% of those slated to move left the USDA entirely, including large numbers of employees with decades of experience who are not easily replaced; it is not easy for career employees with homes, families, and lives to pick up and start again in a new state with little notice. As a result, the number of economic reports out of USDA agencies dropped by half, and funding for land-grant universities was significantly delayed.
Another part of the recently announced restructuring is to close down the nation’s largest agricultural research station, the Beltsville Agriculture Research Station in Maryland, and move its research efforts to different stations across the country. Beltsville has been a center of advanced research in organic and non-organic agriculture for decades. It is currently developing state-of-the-art techniques to track and target weeds and improve soil health for organic corn, soybean, and cotton producers. It also houses the Electron and Confocal Microscopy Unit (ECMU), which researchers can access and use to identify plant diseases and pathogens that put crops at risk. Beltsville research also developed and licensed a patented antibody designed for the wide-spectrum identification of potyviruses, which has protected bean, potato, and hemp producers from billions of dollars in damage. It also houses long-term on-farm research trials that, by their nature, cannot be relocated yet are crucial for measuring slow-changing agricultural elements, such as soil organic carbon, and for testing farming systems against annual weather variations. Despite all of this, the USDA speaks about facilities at Beltsville being decrepit and behind on maintenance. Much of this is true. However, they have only been degraded due to the lack of seriousness shown by successive Congresses and presidential administrations toward agricultural research since 2002, when public agricultural research expenditures peaked.
USDA restructuring and the closure of Beltsville will further erode the USDA workforce. 2025 alone saw the departure of almost 23% of USDA’s research, education, and economic staff through broad deferred resignations and separations caused by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which even the House Agriculture Committee Chairman, GT Thompson (R-PA-15), deemed as “short-sighted.”
It is not clear whether the USDA has the legal authority to restructure its agencies without Congressional approval. In particular, regarding Beltsville’s closure, the Democratic Maryland Congressional Delegation sent a letter to the USDA on April 27th condemning the action. However, illegality did not stop the first Trump administration from restructuring back in 2019 when the USDA Inspector General found that the 2019 efforts violated appropriation law.
Ultimately, any USDA claims that this restructuring will be a good thing because these jobs will be “closer to farmers” is a ruse. Farmers, researchers, and universities can judge for themselves how the 2019 restructuring went and how the 15,000 USDA employees who took deferred resignations last year have helped farmers. Considering the woeful farm economy that is forcing farmers to juggle a growing list of natural and man-made crises at once—without sufficient labor, markets, farm services, and amid rising costs—restructuring right now is the last thing that would bring the USDA closer to those it serves.
