American farmers have a message for the Agriculture Department: Fill the empty chairs plaguing your local offices.
A wave of retirements and an inability to keep pace with private-sector salaries have caused staffing to plunge at key offices. The Farm Service Agency, which provides front-line help to farmers nationwide, now has 2,000 fewer workers than it did in 2006, a nearly 40% decline. Advocates are urging the incoming Congress to tackle the shortage in the 2023 farm bill, the legislative package reauthorized every five years to calibrate the government’s agriculture funding and policies. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the country’s largest agricultural lobbying group, has deemed the USDA staffing shortage a top priority on its 2023 to-do list.