Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has put the first reorganization of the USDA in a generation into action by hiring an assistant, who will be based in his office, to oversee rural economic development efforts. The newly created sub-cabinet position would replace the more senior position of undersecretary of rural development, which is being eliminated. At the same time, the National Rural Housing Coalition released a mass letter, signed by hundreds of groups from across the country, asking lawmakers to preserve the undersecretary slot and to block the administration from slashing $1 billion in funding for rural water, housing, and business development.
Rural development is the most controversial part of Perdue’s reorganization plan. Farm groups applauded its creation of an undersecretary for trade, which was required by the 2014 farm law. But an array of farm, local government, community development, and environmental groups say the reorganization relegates rural development to a secondary role, even if it would be handled by an agency reporting directly to the secretary of agriculture.
Perdue, for his part, said the newly created post of assistant to the secretary for rural development actually signifies an elevation of economic development. “Rural America will have a seat at the main table and have walk-in privileges with the secretary from day one,” he said in a statement. On Twitter, he greeted the new assistant, Anne Hazlett. “Using her walk-in privileges already!” Perdue said of a photo showing Hazlett chatting with him.
When the plan was unveiled on May 11, a USDA official said the reorganization would take effect in 30 days. Perdue’s announcement of Hazlett fit the schedule but was, said one rural activist, “a bit of a slap in the face,” considering the USDA is accepting public comments on the plan through Wednesday.
“In the end, I think it is going to be up the appropriators to stop this,” said Greg Fogel, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, a small-farm advocacy group. With its power of the purse, Congress could insist on keeping the undersecretary for rural development as well as more adequate funding for economic development programs.
Perdue was scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture on Tuesday.
The letter organized by the nonprofit National Rural Housing Coalition says the Trump administration’s “response to the problems facing rural America can only be described as a wholesale retreat” that eliminates 40 programs and 30 percent of rural development funding. “What will be left is a hollowed-out Rural Development function, degraded within the department with fewer resources to help rural America.” The National Farmers Union, one of the groups that signed the letter, said that together, the USDA budget cuts and reorganization put into question the long-term viability of rural development efforts.
The USDA said, “It is important to note that the systems, functions, and internal structure of the Rural Development agencies will not be changing. Removing the additional bureaucratic layer of an undersecretary will allow Hazlett as Assistant to the Secretary to obtain ‘go’ or ‘no go’ decisions directly from Perdue without having to have ideas or suggestions passed through channels in the office.”
Hazlett moved to the USDA from the Senate Agriculture Committee, where she was chief counsel. The Indiana native previously served as that state’s agriculture director. “Small towns and the people who call them home have been my life’s passion,” she said in the USDA statement.
Rural economic development is a perennial challenge. Rural income and employment rates traditionally lag urban rates. Rural Americans tend to be older, poorer, and less educated than their city cousins, partly because young people move to cities to find jobs. Only one in seven Americans lives in rural areas—which cover 72 percent of U.S. lands—and public services can be far away and cost more because they have a smaller population base to support them.
“The economic recovery here has not kept pace with urban areas and remains well below where it was before the recession,” Perdue said at the Delta Council’s annual meeting over the weekend. “One in four rural children lives in poverty, a rate not seen since 1986.”
The USDA reorganization plan also groups agencies running crop subsidies, crop insurance, and land stewardship under the control of a new undersecretary for farm production and conservation. Some conservation advocates fear stewardship will be neglected in favor of increased crop production.
To read the National Rural Housing Coalition letter, with its 16 pages of signatures, to lawmakers, click here.
To read the 10-page USDA reorganization plan, click here.