One-third of the jobs at two USDA research agencies are still vacant 18 months after their abrupt Trump-era relocation to Kansas City, said the chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees the USDA budget on Wednesday. Acting agriculture undersecretary Chavonda Jacobs-Young said the USDA was rebuilding staff numbers as quickly as possible, adding, “We are on the way.”
The Trump administration announced in August 2018 that it would move the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture out of the Washington area. It completed the relocation in September 2019. An estimated three-fourths of the 450 affected employees, some of them experts in their fields, quit rather than move. About 250 positions stayed in Washington.
“Your work is cut out for you,” said Georgia Rep. Sanford Bishop, chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, in his first question to Jacobs-Young. “What is your plan to quickly and appropriately fill the staffing vacancies at each of the agencies?”
“We are hiring at an extremely fast pace,” said Jacobs-Young. NIFA has hired 179 employees and ERS 96 since October 2019. The USDA expects to hire an additional 50 people for each agency before the end of this fiscal year. Each agency has about 220 employees at present, she said.
Last month, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the agencies would stay in Kansas City. “What we’re trying to do now is limit the level of disruption” and rebuild the workforce, he said at the annual meeting of the North American Agricultural Journalists. Some of the new employees may be based in Washington and others in Kansas City, he said.
The Trump administration said the relocation would save money on rent and salaries and make it easier to recruit employees from small college towns. The ERS analyzes food, natural resources, rural development, and agricultural issues, including USDA programs. NIFA awards more than $1 billion a year in competitive research grants. In 2019, the Trump administration proposed cutting the ERS budget in half.
Jacobs-Young said the USDA’s research wing had “faced significant staff losses over the past five years, and rebuilding that capacity is a key priority for the mission area. If our nation is to maintain our leadership role in agricultural innovation and productivity, we have an obligation to support research, education, and extension activities.”
To watch a video of the hearing or to read Jacobs-Young’s written testimony, click here.