Research Will Feel Impact of USDA Workforce Reduction

The size of the USDA workforce is being trimmed back through firings and potential office closures. There are also reports that up to 16,000 USDA employees have accepted deferred resignation offers and will be gone at the end of the summer. National Potato Council CEO Kam Quarles sees major implications for agriculture. “You can have the greatest program in the world at USDA, but if you don’t have people to run it, it’s a real challenge,” Quarles told RRFN. “There’s no place you see that more acutely than in the research space. We have multi-year research projects that are high risk, which really require the federal government’s partnership. If that research stops, if it’s paused because of a lack of personnel, you can lose all of that work that has gone on for years in a very short period of time and you’re just back to ground zero.” Without the right people in place, Quarles said USDA won’t be able to carry out complicated policies that will make agriculture better.