The USDA has announced its final slate of reorganization plans. Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden says now it’s time for action. “Approximately half of the Washington, D.C.-based employees of the Foreign Ag Service will be moving to Kansas City and our hub location there,” he says.
Vaden says all the foreign ag diplomats who are currently in posts overseas will not be affected. As for local Natural Resources Conservation Services or the Farm Service Agency offices, he tells Brownfield, “Those county offices are completely unaffected by this reorganization announcement, and those employees helping producers on the front line, they’re right where we want them to be as well.”
Vaden says there will not be a reduction in force and this move will not result in a loss of institutional knowledge. “We have identified certain critical positions where the incumbent may have been there for many years and may be close to retirement, and so it doesn’t make sense for them to move,” he says. “And in cases like that, what we’re doing is very simple. We’re leaving that employee here in Washington, D.C., and we’re hiring their successor out in the field.”
He says once the reorganization is complete, there will still be more than 2,000 USDA employees in Washington, D.C., and every agency will continue to have representation in the Beltway.
