By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The Trump administration's plan to relocate thousands of Department of Agriculture employees from the U.S. capital could risk research, trade and aid programs as staff decline to relocate, according to union surveys and interviews with 10 federal employees.
The USDA plans to move more than half of its 4,600 Washington-area employees to regional offices as part of a broader reorganization that it says will better tailor its services to farmers and ranchers.
The rest of the agency's 77,000 personnel already work outside the region.
President Donald Trump last year undertook a sweeping effort to restructure the federal government, leading tens of thousands of employees to leave their jobs, including more than 15,000 USDA staff.
Agency staff have begun to receive relocation notices, some as recently as mid-July, including in the Foreign Agricultural Service, Agricultural Research Service, Forest Service and Food and Nutrition Administration, according to the Reuters interviews.
Yet the vast majority of those employees do not plan to move, risking widespread staff losses that could compromise research, trade missions and more, according to the interviews and union surveys.
Collin Bradley, president of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Local 3976, which represents staff at the FAS, said childcare, proximity to aging parents and spouses' jobs are among the reasons employees may not relocate.
Bradley, one of the 10 federal employees Reuters interviewed and speaking in his capacity as union president, said staff are frustrated with what they see as a lack of transparency from the USDA about which positions are being moved and why. "Everyone is asking how did you come to these decisions, and no one in leadership has been able to give a concrete answer."
The USDA did not respond to questions but pointed to a webpage with past memos and announcements about the relocation.
PROGRAMS AT RISK
On July 17, some FAS staff were sent notices to relocate to Kansas City, according to three agency employees.
Many of the affected positions are in the agency's foreign affairs division, which supports diplomats in the agency's nearly 100 global field offices, and in the division that administers international food aid programs, they said.
A June survey by AFSCME Local 3976 found that just 3.8% of FAS employees would relocate to Kansas City, while more than 71% said they would leave the agency if their position was relocated.
Morale at the FAS is plummeting as staff, already managing a heavier workload due to last year's departures, face unemployment if they can't uproot their lives, said one employee.
USDA's reorganization will also consolidate some offices of its Food and Nutrition Administration, which administers the agency's 16 nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.
The National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 226, which represents some FNA employees, found in a June survey that 81% of staff would not relocate. That could mean program interruptions due to untenable workloads for the remaining staff, said one FNA employee.
And moving scientists from the Agricultural Research Service's research site in Beltsville, Maryland, where some staff received relocation notices in July, could interrupt research — including tomato and strawberry breeding — and waste resources, said three employees.
UNION, LAWMAKER OPPOSITION
In early July, several unions sued the USDA to stop the reorganization, citing the risk that mass staff departures would leave the agency unable to fulfill its mission.
The suit was joined by organizations like the National WIC Association, which advocates for the agency's Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, who rely on USDA staff for technical support.
The USDA said it would not comment on ongoing litigation.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and 19 other senators sent a letter to Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden on July 27 expressing concern about the reorganization's impact on the Rural Development agency.
Sixty percent of positions at that agency will be relocated to St. Louis or Dallas, according to the letter.
During the first Trump administration, USDA permanently relocated hundreds of positions from Washington to Kansas City, resulting in significant staff attrition.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; editing by Timothy Gardner and Aurora Ellis)
