A Wisconsin agricultural nonprofit is sounding the alarm on proposed federal changes to reorganize the United States Department of Agriculture and is urging farmers and advocates to oppose them.
Part of the reorganization would relocate national operations out of Washington, D.C.
Chuck Anderas, policy director for the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, said he believes it is part of a larger effort to further reduce the size of the agency. Wisconsin has lost about 22% of its USDA staff this year.
"A lot of them were spread throughout the state and it caused a lot of disruption of services," Anderas explained. "It makes it a lot more difficult for the government to efficiently carry out its mission in those areas."
Anderas pointed out organizations like his rely on partnerships with the USDA but communication has become increasingly difficult. He argued additional agency cuts would disrupt farmer access to critical programs. The USDA has said the reorganization would cut costs and better meet the needs of farmers. The Institute is drafting a letter of opposition and Anderas added they are urging community members to sign on to it to meet the Aug. 31 deadline for public comments.
Anderas noted small and medium-sized farms depend on cost-sharing and technical assistance programs provided by the agency, while large farms benefit from commodity payments and crop insurance subsidies. Farms implementing practices for improved water quality and climate change resilience would be especially affected.
"They're not doing this out of what's in the best interest of USDA employees or the farmers that USDA serves," Anderas contended. "It's part of this further mission of Project 2025 and we’ve all lived through the last seven months, and it's been a really difficult time because there's so much uncertainty."
The USDA collects data on crops and markets, research support, and work on food security, food safety and agricultural system resilience. Anderas stressed it would all be negatively affected by the loss of capacity. He criticized the lack of government transparency in the process, underscoring unlike normal procedure, public comments about the proposed reorganization are not being published in the Federal Register. In response, he emphasized the Institute plans to publicly publish its comments.
"We want to get as many people to publicly register their opposition to this plan as we can," Anderas stated. "To show that that's not actually in the benefit of the American people or of farmers in Wisconsin or across the country."
