Ag Secretary Details USDA Changes

OMAHA (DTN) -- Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins visited Nebraska on Monday where she laid out the Trump administration's "Farmers First" policies to help smaller farmers with a set of policy initiatives Rollins said she intends to lead at USDA.

Rollins visited a major corn processing plant, a pork processing facility and an independent farm as she laid out some policies to help USDA provide more customer service for small farmers.

Rollins on Monday also signed a waiver making Nebraska the first state that will be allowed to ban sugary drinks such as soda under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Rollins also talked about agricultural labor and using USDA resources to restrict solar operations on productive farm ground.

USDA REORGANIZATION

Rollins had set a May 27 target date to announce a USDA reorganization plan but USDA "got caught up in litigation over it, but hopefully as soon as possible," she said. "The plan is ready. We're ready to announce it. We're excited about it. It's going to be about realigning and refocusing USDA around its original intended mission."

Rollins added, "That will include, not surprisingly, some potential move out of Washington, D.C., to where we can serve our customers better as well as being more efficient and more effective with taxpayer dollars. So, it's coming and it's dependent on litigation. Hopefully soon."

USDA has cut roughly 15,000 staff since January. Rollins said the department was at 97,000 employees at the end of the first Trump administration, but staff under the Biden administration "had ballooned up" to closer to 113,000 employees.

Rollins said she did not think the department would offer any more "deferred resignation program" (DRP) offers to employees after the latest round in April. "There's no doubt we need to realign to better serve our farmers but there is no plan to go deeper through DRP than what we've already done," she said.

SNAP AND SODA BAN

Rollins has championed the issue of banning sugary drinks under SNAP, the country's largest food assistance program for lower income people. Rollins has encouraged states to ask for waivers under the program, especially when it comes to soda. "The No. 1 cost driver in the SNAP program is sugary drinks," Rollins said. "Junk food comes in right behind it as well."

Rollins said the SNAP program "has lost its way from a program focused on health and nutrition to one that allows any purchases at the grocery story other than alcohol, tobacco, hot and prepared foods and household items."

Nebraska will have a two-year pilot project to start on Jan. 1, 2026, and end in 2028.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a pork producer, said he has heard years of criticism about red meat while he believes poor health outcomes such as heart disease are driven by high sugar consumption. "All you have to do is look and see how many people are stuffing sugar in their mouths non-stop," Pillen said.

He added, "So this is the first step to make sure that we help people who are in a lower socio-economic status to make sure they can eat healthy again. We're not going to use government dollars to make people unhealthy."

Shaping SNAP to provide healthier food is a bipartisan issue, Rollins said, noting she has other waiver applications from the governors of Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana and Texas. Iowa's governor has submitted a similar waiver request.

AG LABOR

On farm labor, USDA's handout pointed to the USDA Agricultural Labor Affairs Coordinator within the Office of the Chief Economist as working to coordinate with other federal agencies.

"If our farmers can't have the workforce that they need -- which many do not -- I know we've got to fix that and change it."

Rollins pointed to President Donald Trump discussing agricultural labor at a Cabinet meeting in April. Trump told Rollins, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to find a solution to help farmers legalize workers who are now undocumented. Rollins said Chavez-DeRemer is "hyper focused" on agricultural labor, including the H-2A program. "But it's time to take a wholesale look at the labor force in our agriculture industries," Rollins said.

Trump had asked Rollins to create a mechanism that would allow farmers to sign a document or affidavit for undocumented workers, who would self-deport then be allowed to return legally. Rollins said USDA continues working with the Department of Labor.

"Our teams are meeting and figuring out how to make that a reality," she said.

To move ahead on agricultural labor, the border needed to be secure. Rollins said. "The president and our border team have basically secured the border in record time."

Rollins was asked if labor reform meant cattle producers would get the chance to hire farmworkers with a visa. Unemployment in Nebraska is under 2%, making it difficult to find workers.

"Ultimately, the real fix is in Congress," Rollins said.

She pointed to Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., who traveled with her on Monday, along with Rep. Glenn "GT" Thompson, R-Pa., the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and others in Congress who have been working on a farm labor solution for a long time. "I am hopeful that with a secure border we can now move to the real work of the ag community and getting a labor force," Rollins said.

FARM BILL

Ask about the farm bill process, Rollins noted a lot of farmer safety net programs will be updated in the budget reconciliation bill. Rollins also blamed the Biden administration for Congress failing to pass a farm bill in the last Congress.

"The fact that we haven't had a farm bill. The fact that the last administration didn't get one done when they were supposed to, has been devastating to a lot of our farmers, specifically with regards to reference prices, etc. So, we are encouraged," she said. "You never know, this is true sausage making. But the President's vision, his passion and alignment with our farmers and our ranchers, I think, is reflected in the fact that some of those key parts of the farm bill are within this reconciliation process."

RESTRICTING SOLAR FARMS

Under the guise of protecting working farmland, Rollins said quality farmland should be used to farm, "not to put on solar panels from China on top of."

In the handout, USDA stated the department would disincentivize the use of federal funding at USDA for solar panels to be installed on productive farmland through prioritization points and regulatory action. "Farmland should be for agricultural production, not solar production," USDA stated. "We call on state and local governments to work alongside USDA on local solutions."

SMALL FARMER INITIATIVE

"We have to change the way we think and do business," Rollins said.

In a handout dubbed, "Farmers First," Rollins cited a 2023 Economic Research Service report citing more than 1.6 million farmers fall into the category of farms and they make up more than 86% of the country's farms. Those farms operate on 41% of the country's farm acreage and generate about 24% of the country's overall farm production.

Rollins and USDA detailed other "actionable solutions" to help support small family farmers:

-- Ensure simple streamlined and transparent tools and applications.

-- Ensure reliable access to credit, "especially for new and beginning farmers, but also for our multi-generational farmers." she said.

It should be noted USDA has put new requirements on Farm Service Agency (FSA) direct and guaranteed loans during the past month requiring new layers of approval at the Secretary's office and some larger loans also would now have to be approved by someone in the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Rollins did not mention that issue on Monday.

USDA's handout called for "providing greater access to farmland: land acquisitions and permitting," citing that USDA's most effective tools to curb rising land value are FSA farm ownership loans and guaranteed loans. To protect against development pressures, USDA states farmers also could use the Agricultural Land Easement (ALE) program to help farmers protect their land from development.

-- Ensure small farms can be passed on to the next generation for generations to come. USDA cited the tax code, stating Congress to pass a tax bill that would continue to protect farmers from the estate tax. Other tax measures also could help, such as bonus depreciation and Section 179 deductions, USDA stated.

-- Enhance access to risk management and business planning tools. Some of the enhancements here will come from Congress as part of the reconciliation bill, but USDA also stated that staff are working to help make smaller farmers more aware of risk management and disaster programs and again make them simpler for smaller farmers to enroll. USDA cited the upcoming portal for disaster programs as such a tool.

-- Ensure definitions of farm size reflect modern day realities. USDA is reviewing farm size definitions going forward. The department cited a small farm can range from $1,000 in gross sales up to a full-time farmer with $350,000 in gross sales. "The resource need of those operations may differ drastically," USDA stated.

"That's more for grant making and grant applications, but that's important for our smaller farmers," Rollins said.

See more DTN stories:

-- "Budget Reconciliation Bill Advances," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

-- "House Ag Committee Passes Farm Bill Reconciliation Package Along Party Lines," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @ChrisClaytonDTN

(c) Copyright 2025 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.