Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins faced queries on fertilizer costs, global food aid, specialty crops and the Forest Service at a Senate hearing Wednesday on USDA budget priorities.
On efforts to curb high fertilizer prices, the Trump administration is working on a new initiative, but Rollins told lawmakers it’s too soon to announce details other than to say it’s an “all-of-government approach.”
The U.S. ag chief said she’s on daily calls with administration officials and the heads of fertilizer companies. She also stressed the need to look at the problem with the goal of bringing down prices in the short term and reducing U.S. dependence on other countries for crucial crop nutrients in the long term.
“The fact that we have offshored so much of our fertilizer over the last decade or so is astounding to me,” Rollins said. “It is a national security issue and we're relying on Russia and China for our fertilizer. The announcement is coming.”
“Really good news” is coming that potentially includes funding, she said without elaborating during a budget hearing of the Senate Appropriations ag panel chaired by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
Republicans and Democrats alike were eager to draw Rollins out on the fertilizer market, which has been upended by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Forest Service revamp
On USDA's overhaul of the Forest Service, Sen. Martin Heinrich, ranking Democrat of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked Rollins for details on the plan that will impact the management of 198 million acres of forests and relocate thousands of federal workers in the Washington, D.C., region to locations including Salt Lake City.
“I've seen IKEA directions that were longer than this,” he said while asking about the cost to move employees across the country.
Rollins said the USDA is still working on that figure, but ultimately the revamp will result in “massive cost savings.” She also said workers are mostly “really excited” for a chance to leave the national capital region, where the high cost of living requires many workers to have to live as far as 90 minutes from the office.
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The queries came as more than 30 senators, including Heinrich and Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar, top Democrat on the Senate Ag Committee, wrote Deputy Ag Secretary Stephen Vaden on Wednesday to raise concerns about the reorganization of the 121-year-old forest management agency.
“While we have expressed support for improving the operations of the [Forest Service], we believe the reorganization announced on March 31, 2026, may lead to additional capacity and workforce reductions throughout the agency, harming its ability to deliver on its mission,” the senators wrote.
In response to a question from Hoeven on the Forest Service restructuring, Rollins said the Trump administration will have news by the end of this week on the “next phase of the reorganization.”
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, top Democrat on the ag subcommittee, expressed worry about the plan to close facilities at New Hampshire’s Bartlett Experimental Forest and “further evaluate” Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest.
“I would just urge you to take another look at this aspect of the reorganization, because it is going to have a horrific impact on the research about our forests,” Shaheen said while noting that researchers at Hubbard Brook were the ones to identify the problem of acid rain in the 1980s. “There is work here that we just can't reproduce anywhere else that is going to be lost if these closings happen.”
On the status of the Food for Peace program now housed at USDA and rebranded, America First International Food Assistance, Rollins said the initiative to deliver emergency U.S. assistance to food-scarce countries has “really good people working on it.”
“There’s always going to be a little bit of clunkiness as we're moving things around, but ultimately, the team feels confident,” she said.
Rollins also noted that this Friday she’ll be in Missouri to announce “some tweaks” to the USDA’s Supplemental Disaster Relief Program aimed at helping farmers of specialty crops.
“If you're a blueberry grower, you don't have the same paperwork that, you know, a corn or wheat farmer does,” she said. “That has been to the detriment of these specialty crop growers. They don't fit into the box of applying for these programs”
On the Trump administration’s $1 billion in emergency aid for specialty crop producers, Rollins said deployment of those funds are in process and that an online portal meant to help farmers get the funds was reopened for an extra 30 days to help struggling farmers.
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