Paul Heimel, Potter County Commissioner in Pennsylvania, said USDA field staff are essential to his county. His “No. 1 priority” and hope, he said, is that field staffing is kept at its current level or expanded, to continue assisting his community with Rural Development grant and loan applications.

USDA leadership has maintained that field office staff for programs like Rural Development and the Farm Service Agency were not impacted by deferred resignations or federal workforce cuts. In fact, groups like the National Association of Farmer Elected Committees (NAFEC) are increasingly warning these offices are critically understaffed.

FSA leaders recently told NAFEC members that staffing levels of county office employees nationwide are under 6,000. That is “several thousand” fewer employees than in recent years, the group said in a press release.

Kevin Dale, a retired county executive director from Oklahoma, said in a statement that it previously took six months for a staff of four to enroll, review, and issue payments to over 700 livestock producers through the Livestock Forage Program. Now there are only two employees in that office.

“Issuing payments quickly under this program will be impossible without additional staffing,” Dale said. (Link to this post.)