The U.S. Department of Agriculture will relocate much of its Washington, D.C., workforce to five regional hubs and vacate several buildings in the area, including its flagship research center, the agency announced on Thursday.
The plan is the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to reorganize and reduce the size and footprint of the federal government. More than 15,000 USDA employees, about 15% of its total workforce, have this year taken one of the agency’s two financial incentive offers to leave the agency.
No more than 2,000 USDA employees will remain in the Washington area once the reorganization is complete, the agency said in a press release.
The rest, about 2,600 people, will be relocated to hubs in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah, the agency said.
The agency is not conducting widespread staff reductions, though the relocation plan is part of the USDA’s process of reducing its workforce, the release said.
When the agency relocated two of its agencies from Washington in 2019, under the first Trump administration, it saw significant staff attrition.
The USDA also said it will vacate several properties in the Washington area, including its flagship research site, the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, and one of its headquarters buildings on the National Mall.
The phased plan to relocate workers was made to bring USDA staff closer to its “core constituents,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a video to staff.
The agency also plans to reduce or close some regional offices, including consolidating the National Agricultural Statistics Service, which releases agricultural market data, from twelve offices to five, according to an agency memo.
The Forest Service will also close its nine regional offices over the next year in a plan that “will take into consideration the ongoing fire season,” the memo said.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in WashingtonEditing by Chizu Nomiyama, Frances Kerry and Marguerita Choy)
