The Daily Populous Friday April 11st, 2025 night edition
Authored by fox5dc.com and submitted by Specialist_Heron_986

The Brief A new report indicates that the USDA is planning to shut down its D.C. headquarters and lay off thousands of workers. According to the report, the plan is to relocate employees who are not laid off to three hubs across the country. Dozens of leases at field offices are also on the chopping block.

There are new reports that the U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to dismantle its headquarters in D.C. and lay off thousands more workers.

Eric Katz is the journalist who broke the story in the publication Government Executive, reporting that the USDA plans to offload one of its two main buildings at the headquarters in D.C. and terminate thousands more positions.

"We think it'll be pretty soon," Katz explained. "Employees have incentives that are voluntary to leave the department and at the end of that - wrapping up next week and next - we expect mandatory layoffs will take place quickly after that."

Katz' reporting also found that the plan is to relocate employees who are not laid off to three hubs across the country, though it's not clear yet exactly where those will be.

Dozens of leases at field offices are also on the chopping block.

"The justification is to have the Department of Agriculture be closer to the farmers and ranchers but that's just rhetoric. Because the reality is that it's probably better to be centralized near other agencies than, I don't know where they have in mind, Omaha, Nebraska, Wichita, Kansas," said David Katz, an attorney and policy analyst.

John Boyd is the president and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, representing about 150,000 farmers across the United States.

He's been a fourth-generation farmer in Virginia for 42 years and said he has never seen anything like this before.

"A lot of these farmers are scared. They don't know what's going to happen," Boyd said.

And the worst part about it, he said, is the timing. Right now is planting season, Boyd adding that this is when farmers need the most clarity about their path ahead.

"This administration put a halt on loans, grants and things to help farmers but he [President Trump] keeps making these announcements — almost in a sly, sarcastic way — that he loves farmers and we're just going to have to ride this out," Boyd said.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's office told FOX 5 they have no comment on the potential move.

In February, the USDA terminated about 6,000 jobs. A month later, those jobs were ordered to be reinstated by a federal judge. But it's not clear if those positions will be impacted by the Supreme Court's latest ruling on probationary federal workers.

A USDA spokesperson provided FOX 5 with a statement Tuesday afternoon, saying:

"Under President Trump's leadership, USDA is being transparent about plans to optimize and reduce our workforce and to return the Department to a customer service focused, farmer first agency. We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of Americans' hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar is being spent as effectively as possible to serve the people. Secretary Rollins is actively pursuing plans to reduce USDA's workforce to better serve the needs of the people we serve."

pschell on April 10th, 2025 at 16:17 UTC »

As an FYI- the USDA is not just food. They also oversee RD, or Rural Development which a portion of subsidized housing very similar to HUD or Section 8. This housing subsidy helps very low income households pay rent each month.

Losing funding would make millions of people homeless.

Oogaman00 on April 10th, 2025 at 16:07 UTC »

What the fuck.

So we can't get fruit from Mexico and our own farms no longer have insurance to cover the increasing terrible storms

hadinger on April 10th, 2025 at 16:07 UTC »

Cool, this should have zero negative ramifications