Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Aubrey Bettencourt has resigned from the agency, according to a letter sent to staff and obtained by Agri-Pulse. Colton Buckley, NRCS associate chief, will assume the role of chief today.
In the letter, Bettencourt said she “could not be more confident in this decision, prouder of what we have accomplished, or more excited of what is to come for our Service.”
Bettencourt’s departure comes as the Agriculture Department remains under criticism for understaffed NRCS field offices across the U.S. after mass resignations and layoffs across the federal government last year. NRCS maintains field offices in many counties and administers a variety of voluntary, incentive based farmer-facing programs including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program, and Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, among others.
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Most recently NRCS is leading a regenerative agriculture pilot program, which is a key tenant of the Make America Healthy Again movement's reach into production agriculture.
Colton Buckley, the agency’s new leader, joined NRCS in March 2025 as chief of staff and was promoted to associate chief in November. Earlier, he was CEO of the National Association of Resource Conservation & Development Councils and was a senior strategy manager at Turning Point USA, a conservative political organization founded by Charlie Kirk.
The American Farmland Trust called Buckley, who grew up on his family's cattle ranch, an "ardent advocate for a farmer-first agenda," and praised his experience "elevating the issue of agricultural land loss as a priority within the Department and supporting funding to help farmers and ranchers who want to permanently protect their land."
Bettencourt will step “into a new role of service,” according to the letter. Sources suggest that position will be at the Department of the Interior.
During the first Trump administration, Bettencourt served as deputy assistant secretary in the office of the secretary for the Water and Science Division at the Department of the Interior. She oversaw a range of operational, policy issues and programs for the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Central Utah Project Completion Act, which included managing water supplies in the Bureau of Reclamation’s 17 Western states.
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