The Agriculture Department will complete a reorganization of more than half the current D.C.-based staff to five regional hubs across the U.S. by the end of 2026, Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden says on Agri-Pulse Newsmakers.
In a comprehensive year-in-review interview, Vaden said “when you and I talk at the end of next year … We will have redistributed the majority of our USDA employees to our new hub locations, plus other places where we already have leased office space.”
The reorganization, a process led by Vaden, will move more than 2,000 USDA employees to regional hubs in five cities: Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, Utah.
When asked if employees will be moved to the regional hubs by the end of 2026, Vaden confirmed “they will be.”
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“As a matter of fact, we're already moving to implement that, and you'll see that in the days and weeks ahead with public announcements,” Vaden told Newsmakers anchor Lydia Johnson.
The reorganization is expected to cut the national capital region's 4,600 employees to no more than 2,000, according to the USDA’s original July announcement.
Vaden said USDA is “being very transparent” in the reorganization process and directed those interested to the USDA’s reorganization webpage.
Comments to the reorganization have not yet been publicly posted by USDA, but some farm groups and other stakeholders have raised concerns about the impact of the plan on agencies and personnel.
During the interview, Vaden said the administration’s major farm aid package expected to be announced next week would cover “a wide variety of commodity crops.” He said the administration intended to use the full amount of funding it has available.
Other issues Vaden discussed included food inflation and President Donald Trump’s goal of lowering retail beef prices. Vaden said “if we're going to have a healthy supply chain, everybody along that chain needs to be making a little profit and the consumer needs to be able to pay a price that he or she can afford.”
The livestock sector is currently one of the few bright spots in the farm economy.
The full Newsmakers interview is available at Agri-Pulse.com.
