Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Friday announced the new leaders of the Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Risk Management Agency.

Bill Beam, a Pennsylvania farmer who was deputy administrator of FSA during the first Trump administration, will return as the agency's administrator. 

Aubrey Bettencourt will be chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Pat Swanson will be administrator of the Risk Management Agency.

Bettencourt, the former president and CEO of the Almond Alliance of California, most recently was global director of government relations and external affairs for Netafim, a manufacturer of precision irrigation equipment.

Swanson, who operates a crop insurance agency in Ottumwa, Iowa, has been a director for the American Soybean Association and last year completed a term on the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Board.

Beam has been serving as president of Rural Investment to Protect our Environment (RIPE), which is helping sponsor an $80 million Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities project, part of a Biden administration initiative. 

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Rollins also named Brooke Appleton as deputy undersecretary for farm production and Conservation. Appleton comes from the National Corn Growers Association, where she was vice president of public policy.

In addition, Rollins named Andrew Fisher chief of staff for Farm Production and conservation, and Colton Buckley as chief of staff for NRCS. Fisher was a legislative assistant for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He previously held the same position in the office of Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

Buckley was CEO of the National Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils. Before that, he was appointed to the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents by Gov. Rick Perry as well as the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture’s Advisory Council.

In addition, USDA on Thursday named Jaye Hamby the new director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, replacing Manjit Misra. Hamby, a native of Tennessee native, "grew up on his family’s cow-calf operation and developed a deep connection to agriculture through 4-H and FFA, eventually serving as a national FFA officer," a USDA press release said.

He has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from the University of Tennessee and master’s and doctorate degrees in agricultural education from Oklahoma State University. "Over the course of his career, he has directed hundreds of research efforts specializing in concept testing, product marketing, value driver analysis, and following market trends and strategies to support agricultural producers," the release said.

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