Update: A federal appeals board on Wednesday ordered USDA to allow fired probationary employees to return to work until April 18. In a statement to Agri-Pulse, a USDA spokesperson said the agency "will work to abide by the ruling and has no further comment at this time.” Read more here.
USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service didn’t have a district conservationist in Bradley County, Arkansas, for almost 11 years before Josh Hardin showed up.
When Hardin was hired by NRCS last August, he was tasked with bringing life to an office that had not existed in over a decade. After the agency rented a space in an old bank building for him to work from, he brought in chairs and tables from home, decorated the space with potted plants and outfitted the kitchen with supplies.
Hardin worked hard to rebuild relationships with area farmers who were distrustful of the agency, which for years only sent conservationists from Mississippi or other parts of Arkansas to help them address soil erosion, water quality and other natural resource concerns. He had the right degrees, knew the community and operated a farm a few counties over, he said. When he first applied for the post, Hardin said his supervisors saw him as a "perfect fit."
Despite the hour-and-10-minute drive to work every day, Hardin finally felt like he’d landed his dream job. He helped at least 30 new “clients,” as he calls them, apply for conservation programs during his tenure. He believes that number is an undercount.
“Rarely in life do we get to be in a place where it’s like an eclipse,” Hardin said. “You’re doing what you want to do, you’re making the money you need to make to do it and people are also happy you’re there.”
Then the email came.
On Feb. 13 and 14, at least 1,200 probationary NRCS employees were informed that their positions were terminated, as were workers in other branches of USDA. Hardin was one of them.
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Josh Hardin (Photo: Josh Hardin)
We lost a man that was energetic and was really, really well equipped to work with the people here,” Arkansas timber and cattle producer Allen Primm said of Hardin’s termination.
Now, the Bradley County office once again lacks a district conservationist of its own, leaving farmers without a local contact qualified to initiate contracts or authorize payments. Buyouts and firings have shrunken staffs at other USDA field offices as the Trump administration works to downsize the federal workforce. Leases for some locations will soon be terminated.
At least eight USDA offices in Indiana are devoid of NRCS staff following recent cuts, as are six in Kansas, five in Oklahoma, four in Missouri and three in Minnesota, according to a tally by one source familiar with these offices. Some of these are “effectively shuttered,” the source said.
NRCS Chief Louis Aspey told reporters Monday at Commodity Classic in Denver that the agency would stretch staff to cover offices that lost personnel. While he said there shouldn't be any offices "without any staff there at all," he added, “If there are, we’re realigning at the state level to make sure that there’s seamless coverage.”
In a statement, a USDA spokesperson said Secretary Brooke Rollins "fully supports President Trump's directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies, and strengthen USDA's many services to the American people."
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The spokesperson also mentioned the idea of "consolidating certain field offices," a move they said "helps ensure that the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars are used effectively while USDA continues to prioritize the delivery of essential services to farmers, ranchers, and producers."
In a memo circulated on Jan. 20, Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell gave agency heads four days to identify all probationary employees, or employees with only two years of service or less, and "promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency."
When mid-February came around, as many as 200,000 probationary employees across the federal government received emails informing them they were fired. In a petition filed to the Merit Systems Protection Board last week, Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger said some 5,900 USDA employees were removed from their jobs.
Agencies in recent weeks have attempted to bring back some fired staffers seen as critical, like scientists working on the government's highly pathogenic avian influenza response.
Federal Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California on Feb. 27 ordered OPM to rescind its Jan. 20 directive, noting in his ruling that it "did not have the authority to direct the firing of employees, probationary or otherwise, in any other federal agency." OPM revised its initial guidance on Tuesday, adding a statement saying it "is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees."
Another 75,000 workers across the entire federal government have voluntarily accepted deferred resignation and will receive full pay and benefits until Sept. 30.
The mass workforce reductions follow a years-long effort by NRCS leaders to bring on enough new workers to offset a seemingly endless stream of employee departures due to retirements and job changes while also expanding the agency’s ranks to handle $19.5 billion in new conservation dollars provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. While NRCS had 11,709 full-time staff last October and aimed to reach 14,000 by 2026, recent employee losses are certain to have set back those efforts.
The agency’s remaining county office employees are now likely to face heavier workloads, longer travel distances for on-the-ground visits and confusion stemming from frozen federal funds. It may take a while for some producers to feel the effect of the staff cuts, but many will see impacts eventually, said Kansas Farmers Union Executive Director Nick Levendofsky.
“The paperwork is stacking up. The work that needs to be done out in the field and on the ground is stacking up. And people are scrambling to pick up the pieces, basically,” said Levendofsky, who noted Kansas has lost at least 81 NRCS staffers in recent weeks.
One four-county service area went from having an NRCS technician in each office to having one for all four counties, said one respondent to a survey released last week by the National Association of Conservation Districts. Some survey participants expected backlogs for cultural resources, engineering and wetland compliance to grow, while others said producers may be left waiting for payments amid shortages of qualified agency employees able to handle project inspection and check-out.
“Certainly, the loss of federal capacity is being felt,” said Jeremy Peters, NACD’s CEO.
Speaking to Agri-Pulse in Washington, House Ag Committee Chair Glenn "GT" Thompson, R-Pa., offered some criticism of the NRCS staff terminations, saying “it makes no sense when you have a farm bill that promotes technical service for farmers to downsize the number of professionals” who provide that assistance.
The Trump administration is now beginning the process of terminating state and county office leases as part of its cost-cutting efforts. So far, it is looking to do so at 58 facilities used by NRCS and the Farm Service Agency, according to an online database the Department of Government Efficiency calls its "Wall of Receipts."
Acting FSA Chief Steve Peterson told Agri-Pulse Monday at Commodity Classic that any lease terminations will not occur until “down the road,” giving agency leaders some time to make plans for relocating staff. He said the purpose is to “evaluate savings and see whether or not there’s the ability to renegotiate or find other locations in those areas to possibly find cheaper rent.”
As the Trump administration attempts to shrink the federal workforce, it makes sense that it would also try to limit the amount of buildings it leases, said Bruce Knight, who served as NRCS chief during the George W. Bush administration.
Bruce Knight (Credit: Bruce Knight)“If we’re going to have fewer folks in government, you don’t need the office space to house people who aren’t there,” Knight told Agri-Pulse.Still, legal hurdles may complicate any Trump administration efforts to downsize FSA and NRCS operations, particularly at the county level.
Language in the 2018 farm bill bars the agriculture secretary from closing any NRCS field offices or leaving them with fewer than two employees through staff relocations without notifying the House and Senate Ag Committees 30 days in advance. This provision likely remains in effect after two temporary farm bill extensions, said recently retired ag policy lobbyist Ferd Hoefner.
Additionally, the funding package approved by lawmakers in fiscal 2024 barred USDA from using appropriated funds to close Farm Service Agency county offices or leave county offices with two or fewer staff by relocating employees, unless it sought approval from the House and Senate Appropriations committees in advance. The government is currently being funded under terms of the FY24 appropriations legislation.
“Both Republican and Democratic administrations have tried to close county offices and Congress routinely blocks it,” Hoefner said, though he added “normal process is going to go by the wayside” in the Trump administration.
Hardin, the terminated Arkansas employee, has filed an appeal with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, submitted a grievance with the Office of Special Counsel and is interested in joining a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees should it become a class action, all in the hopes of getting his job back.
And he says he's not the only one trying.
“If you’re a federal employee, you just don’t know which way is up right now,” he said. “It feels like that’s the point, that the chaos, that these people are intentionally inflicting drama and abuse so we’ll just run away. But I think they underestimate the people they’re messing with. They’re really just making us all want to fight more.”
Rebekah Alvey, Phil Brasher and Lydia Johnson contributed to this report.
For more news, go to www.agri-pulse.com.
Editor's note: This story was updated to include comment from a USDA spokesperson.
