Thousands of employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) accepted the Trump administration’s voluntary resignation offer, leading to a significant reduction in force.
The decrease accounts for about 15 percent of the total workforce at the department which regulates food quality, agriculture development and nationwide nutrition efforts. A USDA spokesperson told The Hill that as of May 1, 15,182 employees elected to take a resignation offer.
“Secretary [Brooke] Rollins is working to reorient the department to be more effective and efficient at serving the American people, including by prioritizing farmers, ranchers, and producers. She will not compromise the critical work of the Department,” the spokesperson said.
“As part of this reorientation, the Deferred Retirement Program (DRP), a completely voluntary tool, was used to empower employees to decide what is best for them,” they added.
The spokesperson said the Biden administration hired a large number of workers with “no sustainable” way to pay them.
A USDA readout detailed that 555 employees at the Food Safety and Inspection Service took the resignation offer while more than 1,000 Farm Service Agency and county office employees also said they’d depart, even though Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that their resignations wouldn’t be accepted, according to reporting from Politico.
An additional 2,408 staffers are leaving the Natural Resources Conservation Service in the second round of deferred resignation offers, per the outlet.
The first opportunity for employees to willingly leave came on the heels of President Trump’s inauguration in January.
USDA is currently made up of 29 agencies and offices with nearly 100,000 employees who serve at more than 4,500 locations across the country and abroad, according to the agency.
Earlier this year, 6,000 probationary staffers were fired but later ordered to be reinstated by a federal board.
In February, USDA officials announced they were working to take back the termination notices sent to several employees who assist the federal response efforts to the bird flu (HPAI).
“Although several positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” the USDA said in a statement to The Hill’s sister station NewsNation at the time.
“USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission,” the statement continued.
The resignations come after USDA announced a $1 billion cut to local food programs sponsored by the department amid calls for White House officials to also help lower the cost of eggs.
Rollins, earlier this week, pledged to bring about a price drop in the coming weeks while boosting foreign agricultural opportunities.
“It is going to be a new era of market expansion around the world, and our team is so committed to that,” Rollins said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Rollins added that she would be making visits to the U.K., Japan and Brazil over the next several months to open up trade to new countries as business with China is scaled back amid the Trump administration’s trade war.
Filip Timotija contributed to this report.
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