DOGE cuts 'gutted’ small KS farm service centers. Bipartisan bill seeks safeguards
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- USDA lost some 24,000 employees from September 2024 to December 2025.
- More than 500 Kansas workers were terminated or took buyouts, a 32% reduction.
- Reps. Derek Schmidt and Sharice Davids introduced the USDA Field Office Stability Act.
Last spring, as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency employed slash-and-burn tactics to bring federal agencies to heel, local farm service centers in Kansas were hit especially hard.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture lost some 24,000 employees from September 2024 to December 2025, federal data shows. In Kansas, more than 500 workers were terminated or took buyouts — a 32% scale-back that constituted the region’s largest USDA staffing reduction.
Now, two members of the Kansas Congressional delegation are teaming up on a plan to prevent a repeat of the mass exodus that led to the temporary closure of several county-level USDA offices where farmers and ranchers could consult with experts on federal programs, farm loans and crop insurance.
“There’s a difference between downsizing towards efficiency and eliminating by taking away the ability to function,” said Kansas 2nd District Rep. Derek Schmidt, a Republican.
“In a lot of these very small offices, downsizing just one or two people can take away the office’s ability to function because it was literally a one- or two-person shop to start with,” he said, describing local service centers as “the front door to USDA for producers.”
Schmidt and Kansas 3rd District Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat who serves on the House Agriculture Committee, plan to introduce legislation on Thursday that they’re calling the USDA Field Office Stability Act.
The bill would prohibit the USDA from closing or relocating any Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), or Rural Development county and field offices, with limited exceptions for when there’s another service center within 20 miles.
The legislation would also require offices to maintain minimum staffing levels and remain open during normal business hours.
“If we don’t do something right now, our farmers, our ranchers, people who depend on USDA services are going to have a harder time accessing those services,” Davids said.
“If, because of these cuts, a farmer is having to drive significantly further, wait weeks longer for assistance or lose access to the local expertise, that’s not actually saving,” Davids said. “It’s not creating a more efficient system. It is shifting the cost and the burden onto the people that we are supposed to be serving.”
‘Two steps forward, three steps back’
Historically, every Kansas county has had its own NRCS, FSA and Rural Development office — oftentimes housed under one roof with just a handful of employees between them.
“It’s USDA’s way of touching every county in the country,” said Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union.
The abrupt series of buyouts and firings at the start of the second Trump administration forced some local offices to stop providing services that producers relied on, he said, pointing to NRCS offices in Mitchell and Riley counties that he said were “completely gutted.”
It’s hard to overstate the importance of convenient access to resources for producers, Levendofsky said.
“It could very well mean the difference between a farmer choosing a conservation program that helps to preserve their land for future generations and not,” he said. “It could mean the difference between a farmer getting access to a credit program to buy more land or to buy cattle or livestock, or even just an operating note to get through the year to buy their seed and fertilizer and chemicals.”
Local representatives in Riley and Mitchell counties said that both offices are back up and operating with the help of temporary employees.
Levendofsky said USDA staffing shortages in local offices date back at least to the Obama administration. Some progress was made filling vacancies under the Biden administration before the most recent employee purge, he said.
“Then boom, here we go into Trump 2.0 and they started cutting those folks. It was like two steps forward, three steps back,” Levendosky said, adding that even if the USDA Field Office Stability Act becomes law, building back trust with the employees qualified to fill the roles could take time.
The Kansas Department of Agriculture praised the effort by Davids and Schmidt in a statement.
“Kansans benefit from having access to these services locally and we know that when federal representatives live and work in the Kansas communities they serve, it helps them understand the needs of Kansans and respond more quickly and effectively,” spokesperson Heather Lansdowne said.
Ensuring stability in local USDA offices is “a practical issue, not a partisan one,” Davids said. She described it as the least the government can do for producers who are “already so stressed out” by high fertilizer and diesel fuel prices and uncertainty about access to international markets.
Schmidt said he’s optimistic that the bipartisan approach will spur action to safeguard access to local resources for farmers and ranchers.
“I’ll be very happy if we’re able to enact the bill into law,” he said. “I’ll be similarly happy if we’re able to persuade USDA to adopt this policy, even without the enactment of law. Either outcome gets us to the same place.”
