Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins defended her record at a wide-ranging House Agriculture Committee hearing Wednesday that touched on trade, personnel reductions at USDA, and cuts to nutrition programs.
She repeatedly mentioned her travel abroad and attempts to open foreign markets to U.S. farm goods and said, as she has before, that the previous administration had vastly increased the workforce at USDA, making it necessary to cut back.
The department has lost about 15,100 employees through buyouts this year, raising concerns that some vital functions of the department will be hampered.
But in response to criticism that the cuts have gone too far, she said, “We are adequately staffed to meet our mission.”
“When we left in the first [Trump] administration, USDA had about 90,000 employees. We came back four years later, we had 112,000,” Rollins said.
Democrats were critical of the administration’s cutting of $1 billion from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and Local Food for Schools programs, which involved farmers providing food to schools and food banks.
In answer to a question from Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., Rollins said Illinois has money left over in those programs that it hasn’t spent. Sorensen pushed Rollins to start up a similar program.
Republicans on the committee largely praised Rollins’ efforts to remake the department but also urged her to focus on issues important to producers in their districts, such as bird flu and the New World screwworm.
On the screwworm, Rollins said the department will have a major announcement “in a couple days.” Asked during a break in the hearing whether that may involve a new sterile fly facility, she said, “It could.”
The border with Mexico has been closed to the import of cattle because of the presence of NWS in Mexico.
Rollins defended efforts to change the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by granting waivers to states to prohibit the purchase of soda and other goods. In response to criticism of Republican proposals to cut SNAP, she repeatedly cited USDA's outlays of $400 million-per-day in food assistance payments, saying that should be enough.
It’s easy to be “in the know” about what’s happening in Washington, D.C. Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news! Simply click here
At the same time, she said, “I don’t want anyone to go hungry,” and “In America, there will not be a hungry child.”
Other highlights from the hearing:
- Speaking about 1890, minority land-grant universities, Rollins said, “This administration is very committed to those institutions.” Her remark came in response to questions from Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Ala., about the freezing and then unfreezing of a minority scholars program at the 1890 institutions.
- Rollins pledged to take a look at the elimination of the Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois. All but one of the more than dozen FTF labs were shut down as USAID was virtually eliminated; the only one to survive is Kansas State’s Feed the Future Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab.
- Responding to criticism of the Make America Healthy Again Commission report, which include mistaken citations and links that went nowhere, she said the mistakes had been corrected but also said there is “no doubt we could do better on the next report.”
- Asked whether she supports animal vaccines to control the spread of bird flu, she said the administration will use the $100 million in its bird flu strategy for “all of the above” solutions, including vaccines and therapeutics.
- The secretary said she is working with Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on a workforce solution for agriculture. Trump indicated in April that producers employing undocumented immigrants need flexibility to continue to do so, but did not provide specifics.
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
