By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) - More than 20,300 employees left the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the first five months of the administration of President Donald Trump, about a fifth of staff, according to a report from the agency's inspector general.
About three-quarters of those employees left the USDA through a financial incentive program offered as part of the Trump administration's effort to shrink the size of the federal workforce, said the report from the USDA's Office of Inspector
General.
The rest left through resignation, retirement, termination or other pathways, said the report, which used pay-period and other data to track departures from January 12 to June 14. At the start of the year, the USDA had more than 110,300 employees, the report said.
Attrition ranged from below 10% in some sub-agencies to as much as 67% in others, said the report. More than 30% of staff left the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the agency's rural development arm.
More than 5,800 employees left the Forest Service (16% of staff), 2,673 left the Natural Resources Conservation Service (22%), 2,105 left the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (25%) and 806 left the Farm Service Agency (24%).
"Losing nearly 20% of all USDA staff weakens the department's ability to respond to challenges facing our farmers, leaves our food supply chains more vulnerable to threats like New World Screwworm and avian flu, and undermines efforts to drive the rural economy forward," said Senator Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, in a statement.
A USDA spokesperson said the agency is "being transparent about plans to optimize and reduce our workforce and to return the department to a customer-service focused, farmer first agency."
The agency plans to relocate about half of its remaining Washington-area staff next year to five hubs across the country.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
