Ag Policy Blog

The organization that represents Farm Service Agency (FSA) county committees nationally is pushing back on claims by top USDA officials that local offices have enough staff to implement new farm bill programs.

In a news release, the National Association of Farmer Elected Committees (NAFEC), the group reiterated that FSA offices "are critically understaffed," yet USDA officials have publicly denied those concerns.

Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden at the Farm Progress Show in late August rejected the notion FSA offices are short on staff. Vaden said USDA would not be asking for temporary or permanent FSA staffing levels.

Still, leaders at NAFEC said leaders at FSA in recent meetings have indicated staffing levels of county office employees are now under 6,000, as compared to several thousand more, just a few years ago. There are more than 2,000 local USDA Service Centers nationally.

"NAFEC has County Committee members in every county in the nation and the word we are consistently hearing is our county office staffs are critically understaffed, said Jim Zumbrink, President of NAFEC, and a grain and turkey farmer from Ohio. "As such, our staff will find it very difficult to perform the complex work of the new farm bill, combined with disaster programs and ongoing programs, with the speed agriculture producers in America, both expect and desperately need."

Since coming into office, the Trump administration has pressed to cull probationary employees from USDA and offer buyouts to senior staff across the department's agencies. Still, USDA leaders have maintained that services to farmers would not be affected by these staff reductions.

USDA officials, including Vaden, recently cited the speed FSA offices issued disaster payments as the reason FSA offices are not understaffed.

NAFEC, however, stated that USDA officials "failed to give an accurate picture of what it takes to get to the point of issuing payments. A full years' worth of work in FSA offices allowed the administration to quickly send out checks, based upon all of the work already performed in 2024 and 2025. For the new programs, this work is yet to be performed, and FSA cannot just send out checks for new programs without having on file acreage reports, eligibility forms, farm record updates, leases, etc."

It should be noted that the Biden administration first began providing aid to producers based on their acreage and crop insurance reports to reduce the time needed to submit applications for disaster aid.

NAFEC cited some of the reports coming in from different states. In Texas, the state with the largest number of county FSA employees, counties are reporting there are "many offices" in Texas without county executive directors and some counties have few staff to administer programs right now.

One big issue is that FSA employees will be responsible for adding and enrolling as many as 30 million new base acres nationwide under provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

"The new farm bill is going to require millions of new base acres to be established which is going to take a lot of work. We also know that ongoing programs like the Livestock Forage Program (LFP), critical to our nation's livestock producers, is a program that takes a lot of staff time to administer," said Kevin Dale a retired county executive director from a large beef producing county in Oklahoma.

For example, Dale explained, "with my staff of myself, two permanent program assistants and a full-time temporary employee, it took us about six months to enroll, review leases and eligibility forms, obtain county committee approval, and issue payments to our 700-plus Bryan County livestock producers. Currently this same Oklahoma office has only two employees. Issuing payments quickly under this program will be impossible, without additional staffing."

David Senter, a legislative consultant for NAFEC and also president of the American Agriculture Movement also weighed in.

"We are facing a farm crisis unlike any we have seen since the late 1970's when farmers drove tractors to Washington DC. We need every resource possible to ensure our agriculture sector is protected. Having adequate staffing in every FSA office across the nation is a critical part of that protection," Center said.

Bob Braden, an NAFEC officer and a corn and soybean grower in Iowa, said, the recent buyouts have left FSA offices not only "depleted of warm bodies," but also saw a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge leave the agency.

"Replacing this experience will take a good amount of time," Braden said.

Jim Densberger, NAFEC officer and corn grower from Nebraska summed it up. "We want to ensure the situation is addressed before the crises, not after it. Our office staffs are

working hard to do all they can with reduced staffing levels and more programs on the horizon to administer. Without more employees to perform the work, our employees and

county elected committees will take the heat for being unable to deliver funds as quickly as normal. Now is the time for our agriculture organizations to sound the alarm."

Also see, "FAPRI: PLC Payments Jump Under OBBBA, But Benefits Uneven Across Crops, States," 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.