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The Agriculture Department is pressing ahead with its plan to reorganize agencies and relocate employees despite concerns about the loss of experienced personnel in a department that has recently seen more than 15% of its workforce depart and amid questions about how well the restructured department will work.
The department announced recently it was renaming the Food and Nutrition Service the Food and Nutrition Administration and moving FNA programs to separate locations. It also plans to move D.C. area Agricultural Research Service personnel out to the field.
USDA also plans to relocate most headquarters employees in the Food Safety and Inspection Service to a new food safety center in Urbandale, Iowa, and relocate employees in the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture to Kansas City, Missouri — a move begun in the first Trump administration but never fully realized.
USDA officials including Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden, who is leading the reorganization effort, have argued that it will make the department more efficient and responsive to the needs of the people it serves, and that employees moving out of the National Capital Region will be able to find better housing outside of the D.C. area.
Bur former and current employees, as well as groups with an interest in USDA operations, disagree.
Kevin Concannon, who served as undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services from 2009-2017, is particularly concerned about the dismantling of the regional office structure at FNA. “That's the engine that really operates the [agency],” he told Agri-Pulse. “The day-to-day relationships with states and with counties happens through the regional offices.”
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Stephen Vaden (USDA photo)“It's an effort not to make it stronger but to make it less effective, in my view,” he says.
An FNA National Treasury Employees Union representative expressed similar sentiments, saying employees have voiced confusion about how new locations were chosen.
“What is the point of any of this?” they asked. “Especially, why are you moving folks from the regional offices who work specifically with the states located near them? Why would you be moving everybody to a centralized location that is farther away from most of the states, especially if the stated rationale for this is being closer to the people we serve, who are, honestly, the state agencies?”
The union rep also raised concerns about “siloing” of FNA functions, with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program going to Indianapolis, Child Nutrition Programs to Dallas, Supplemental Nutrition and Safety Programs to Kansas City, Missouri, and research programs going to Raleigh, North Carolina.
“Certainly, people are not excited about these locations,” they said, adding that coordination across different programs will suffer.
A recent survey of FNA employees, they said, showed 83% are “very unlikely or somewhat unlikely to move.” The union rep also said USDA management has yet to specifically address whether relocation expenses will be provided, and questioned the notion that relocated workers would be able to find cheaper housing, considering that they may have to buy at a higher interest rate.
In a statement shared with Agri-Pulse, a USDA spokesperson said, "The Secretary continues to work methodically and thoughtfully to deliver on the President’s mandate for better accountability to the American taxpayer. Each mission area is mindful of the critical functions it delivers and the customers it serves, and each announcement is reflective of that."
"The department will continue to respect the ongoing labor negotiations, so no further personnel decisions will be shared."
BARC closure worries lawmakers
USDA had already said last year when it announced a reorganization that the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center would close. The 400-building complex in suburban Maryland requires $500 million for modernization and about $40 million per year to run, Vaden has said.
But Maryland elected officials are fighting back. House and Senate Democratic lawmakers penned a letter to Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins and Vaden last month saying the center’s research is vital to producers in the Chesapeake Bay region. In addition, they said the fiscal 2026 appropriations bill that funds the department includes “a clear directive to USDA to keep BARC open” as well as $6 million for construction and facilities improvements at BARC.
Additionally, that bill “barred USDA from reorganizing or relocating an office or employees without the prior notification and approval of the appropriations committees of the House and Senate – approval which has not been obtained by USDA,” according to the letter.
In a meeting with ARS Midwest staff, Administrator Joon Park said nine BARC research projects would be terminated and eight would have their funding reduced, according to notes provided to Agri-Pulse.
He also said that current area and national offices would be consolidated in four locations: Albany, California; Fort Collins, Colorado; Peoria, Illinois; and Stoneville, Mississippi.
An ARS union representative told Agri-Pulse that about one-third of BARC employees would keep their jobs but be relocated to the field, another third would be reassigned to vacant positions in the field.
The union rep said ARS officials have not been specific about which research projects are ending.
Economic Research Service, NIFA to KC
The reorganization plans call for ERS and NIFA employees to be consolidated in Kansas City, as envisioned in the first Trump administration before COVID hit and many ended up working remotely.
About 76% of ERS 
Spiro Stefanou (File photo)and NIFA employees surveyed recently said they would not move, according to American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, the bargaining unit for union members in the two agencies. That figure is similar to the approximately 85% who did not move in the first Trump administration.
“ERS and NIFA are the intellectual and financial engines of American agriculture,” according to a news release from the local. “By forcing this move on an accelerated timeline, with no promise of financial help or job security, the USDA is effectively dismantling decades of institutional knowledge, jeopardizing the very data and funding that farmers, policymakers and land-grant universities rely on.”
“It's not going to make them more effective at their jobs,” he says. “The economists who work on doing the annual outlook report on cotton or grains or some other commodity, they need to be where the data are. They don't need to be where the farmers are.”
Stefanou says currently about one-third of approximately 300 ERS employees are in Washington, about one-third in Kansas City, and the rest are working remotely.
He says he thinks the 76% figure exaggerates how many people might be reluctant to move, in part because “it's an emotional question to ask, and people respond emotionally.”
This story has been updated with a statement from USDA.
