August 15, 2025 – Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee sent Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins an eight-page letter on Wednesday, asking for more information about her plan to significantly reorganize the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“We are deeply concerned that the Department’s proposal will make it less effective and significantly hinder its ability to provide the customer service and support our farmers and rural communities deserve,” they wrote.
The letter includes four pages of detailed questions about how the plan to move more than 2,000 D.C. employees to five new “hubs” across the country will impact specific departments and programs. Lawmakers cited the first Trump administration’s relocation of the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to Kansas City, Missouri. Three quarters of employees quit in the transition, and productivity declined.
“If similar results occur as the result of this reorganization plan, the Department will be paralyzed, and it will be the millions of American farmers and families that depend on USDA services who pay the price,” they wrote.
The letter follows another, sent last week, by a different group of House Democrats, on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Those Representatives also referenced the negative impacts of the ERS and NIFA relocations and asked for more details, including any analyses preceding the reorganization plan, along with a timeline and costs for its implementation.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have expressed frustration at their exclusion from the reorganization plans. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden answered questions in front of the Senate Agriculture Committee at the end of July, but his testimony provided few new details.
“Without rigorous analysis, stakeholder consultation, and planning, any large-scale relocation of USDA could leave the agency without the personnel, expertise, and resources needed to effectively serve agricultural and rural communities,” the lawmakers on the Oversight Committee wrote.
Since January, the USDA has shed more than 20,000 employees, about a fifth of its workforce. Multiple USDA employees, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, told Civil Eats last week that they are doing extra work to fill in for missing people on their teams and have been waiting anxiously to hear if they’ll be expected to move.
“We don’t know any more details than were in the press release and the memo the Secretary released,” one employee said. “We haven’t gotten any communication from our agency leadership on what this will mean for us. We’ve just been trying to get the work done and make sure the programs operate for the American people.” Both groups of lawmakers requested a response from the USDA by next week. (Link to this post.)
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