News
USDA evaluating regional hub locations ahead major department reorganization
The deputy secretary at the USDA says he’s evaluating regional hub locations for the department’s reorganization.
Stephen Vaden tells Brownfield he’ll be in Missouri this week.
“We believe it is important for the senior leadership…to be able to personally lay eyes on these facilities so we can assure ourselves this is somewhere we would want to work before we ask our employees to move there.”
In July, the USDA said it would relocate more than half of its Washington D.C. staff to five new regional hubs. The hubs include Kansas City, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
He says there’s already a large USDA presence in the Kansas City area including the Economic Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Office of General Counsel, some ag economists and Farm Service Agency employees.
“We have increased our presence before our employees who are there, are happy and doing great work for us.”
He says Kansas City could be attractive for other USDA employees.
“When you look across our agencies and see how many deal with land grant universities are involved in working directly with farmers like our Farm Service Agency, it runs the gamut. There’s quite a broad spectrum that would be eligible for relocation to Kansas City.”
Vaden is overseeing the USDA’s plan to reorganize and plans to visit all the proposed hub locations. He also tells Brownfield been reviewing feedback on the reorganization as comments are submitted to the USDA.
“We’ve got private businesses who are telling us with whom they interact at USDA and where they are located throughout the country, who might be best to put in different hub locations,” he says. “We’ve also got people bringing to our attention to other USDA facilities that we have. Particularly our agricultural research service labs and giving us suggestions on different experiments that are currently, you know, being done at our dilapidated facility in Maryland to relocate to these different labs.”
Agriculture and science organizations have submitted comments to the USDA.
The Institute for Ag and Trade Policy and the Union of Concerned Scientists say they oppose USDA’s relocation, expressing concerns about losing experienced, locally trusted staff and research capacity.
The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives has requested the USDA’s regional hubs support, not replace local USDA offices.
Vaden says USDA’s public comment period will be followed by a tribal consultation in mid-October.
“We’ll combine the comments from the tribal governments with the comments that we’re going to receive (from the general comment period). We’ll make any necessary changes based on based on the good feedback that we received and we’ll march forward with the reorganization and relocation.”
The USDA is taking public comments on its re-organization through September 30.
Hear Brownfield’s part two interview with Stephen Vaden.
Half of his comments are BS. Plus USDA has spent hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars to update the Maryland facility. So their fine with wasting all that money. Plus with no name or specifics on what and who was saying what. That means that’s BS too.