USDA plans move from DC to regional agriculture hubs

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants to reduce the USDA footprint in the Washington, D.C., area by relocating approximately 2,600 positions from D.C. to key agricultural regions across the country, while also consolidating operations and realigning its workforce.

Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the agency’s reorganization plan in a July 24 memorandum with stated aims of “improving effectiveness and accountability within the USDA while also reducing bureaucracy and cutting costs.”

“President Donald Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country,” Rollins said in a press release. “We will do so through a transparent and common-sense process that preserves USDA’s critical health and public safety services the American public relies on.”

Following Rollins’s announcement, a public comment period was opened for stakeholders to provide feedback on the plan. USDA employees, industry partners, and members of Congress and the public are encouraged to provide feedback by emailing reorganizationusda [dot] gov through September 30.

The plan

Stephen Vaden, deputy secretary of the USDA, will oversee the agency’s proposed reorganization plan, which has four pillars:

• Ensuring the size of USDA’s workforce aligns with available financial resources and agricultural priorities
• Relocating staff and services closer to the communities USDA serves
• Streamlining management layers and reducing bureaucracy
• Consolidating redundant support functions to improve efficiency

Rollins said in the press release that many buildings in the National Capital Region, that is, the D.C. area, have a backlog of costly deferred maintenance and are below minimum occupancy levels.

During the first phase of a multi-month process, USDA will vacate and return to the General Services Administration the South Building, in Washington, D.C., and Braddock Place in Alexandria, Virginia, which houses the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service. The Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Beltsville, Maryland, will be vacated over multiple years “to avoid disruption of critical USDA research activities.”

Meanwhile, the department plans to retain the Whitten Building as its headquarters, and will continue to use the Sidney R. Yates Federal Building, currently home to the U.S. Forest Service and the National Agricultural Library.

The George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, currently houses USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) headquarters staff members. The plan calls for this facility to be sold or transferred after being used as a temporary location for USDA personnel during the realignment.

To that end, much of the department’s operations in the Washington, D.C., area will be relocated to five regional hubs: Fort Collins, Colorado; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Salt Lake City.

The memo explains that the USDA currently employs approximately 4,600 staff within the Washington, D.C., area where the cost of living is among the highest in the country. In selecting hub locations, the USDA considered where existing concentrations of USDA employees are located and factored in the cost of living. The goal is to retain no more than 2,000 employees in the D.C. area once the reorganization is complete.

Core USDA administrative support sites in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Minneapolis will continue to operate, along with key service centers and laboratories in St. Louis; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Missoula, Montana.

ARS will shutter its Washington, D.C., area offices and transfer residual functions to its Office of National Programs. The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) centers will remain at their current locations in respective USDA hub locations.

Rollins stressed that essential USDA services, including food safety inspections, will not be interrupted by the reorganization.

“The recent USDA announcement was a first step,” a USDA spokesperson said in an email to AVMA News. “Some aspects of the reorganization will be implemented over the coming months while other aspects will take more time to implement. As the reorganization progresses, employees and other relevant parties will be updated accordingly.”

Workforce reductions

Over the last four years, the department’s workforce grew approximately 8% and employees’ salaries increased by 14.5%, many of which are funded by temporary income sources, according to the memo.

“This all occurred without any tangible increase in service to USDA’s core constituencies across the agricultural sector,” Rollins said.

Through this recent reorganization plan, the USDA insists it is not conducting a large-scale workforce reduction but ensuring it can afford those it employs. Instead, the department is reducing staff, mainly through voluntary measures. As of July 24, 15,364 individuals voluntarily elected voluntary retirement or deferred resignation.

The reorganization is reminiscent of a similar plan implemented in 2019, when the USDA relocated two research agencies, the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, Missouri. A 2023 review by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that while the agencies had recovered most of its workforce size by 2021, “the agencies’ workforce was composed mostly of new employees with less experience at ERS and NIFA than the prior workforce.”

The National Association of Federal Veterinarians estimated that, as of December 2024, as many as 3,200 veterinarians were part of the federal workforce, excluding over 1,000 in the military. The largest proportion of veterinarians work for two USDA departments: the Food Safety and Inspection Service and APHIS, which employed about 650 and 600 veterinarians, respectively, as of the end of last year.

The USDA issued a memo in April exempting veterinarians and food safety inspectors from the federal civilian hiring freeze.

Going forward, “USDA has and will continue to fully leverage voluntary programs such as the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIPs),” according to the memo. “The Department will also leverage directed and voluntary reassignments to ensure the workforce is aligned with mission priorities. Focused and limited Reductions in Force will be implemented only if needed and only after approval by USDA’s Deputy Secretary.”

Bee research

The shutting down of the Beltsville center means the end of one of the ARS’s key research sites, described as the world’s largest and most diversified agricultural research complex. The campus spans roughly 6,600 acres in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and sits adjacent to the National Agricultural Library.

BARC houses a wide array of laboratories and field research programs that underpin federal science in animal, plant, and human nutrition research. Among them is the Bee Research Laboratory. The oldest federal bee laboratory conducts research to improve honeybee health and provides a long-running, no-fee national bee disease diagnostic service to beekeepers.

The memorandum offers no timetable or alternative locations for BARC.

Dr. Terry Ryan Kane, an officer with the Honey Bee Veterinary Consortium, said the potential closing of the Beltsville center and Bee Research Laboratory would be “a tragic loss” and could impact food security. The laboratory provides free honey bee disease and pest diagnostic services and is used by many apiary programs across the United States, she added, while private laboratories charge hundreds for similar services.

A version of this story appears in the October 2025 print issue of JAVMA