During President Donald Trump's first year back in office, his administration has prioritized shrinking the federal workforce.
In the first six months of 2025, the Department of Agriculture shed around 20,306 employees nationwide, including 238 in Oklahoma, according to a recent report from the USDA Office of Inspector General. This is nearly 18% of USDA staff in Oklahoma and roughly 18% nationally.
While the federal government worked to reduce the number of their employees, former workers and people close to the USDA said they were worried about the future of certain agencies and how the changes would impact services.
Agriculture researchers, former USDA officials and industry heads sent a letter last week to leaders of the U.S. House and Senate Committees on Agriculture expressing concerns about the farm economy and effects of the administration's policies on farms. This includes cuts to USDA staffing and agriculture research.
"The massive and indiscriminate firings of USDA employees is impacting the ability of farmers to effectively and efficiently access important USDA services," the letter read.
Oklahoma sees cuts in conservation, research and program management
The report is based on available data and evaluates staffing levels from Jan. 12-June 14, 2025, including attrition rates on a state level.
It also breaks those departures down into employees who retired, were dismissed, resigned, were externally transferred or left in the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), a federal initiative allowing employees to remain on paid leave for a period after agreeing to resign.
Most of the employees on a state and national level left under the resignation program. In Oklahoma, 176 employees took a deferred resignation, according to the USDA Office of Inspector General.
There were about 1,099 Oklahoma-based USDA employees in the state at the end of the period covered in the report, down from 1,337 at the beginning of Trump's term.
The report does not go into detail about which agencies experienced staff cuts on a state level. But KOSU used requests under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain data from the USDA showing more specific staff reductions from Oklahoma-based employees from Jan. 20-Aug. 22, 2025.
Here's a breakdown of how many Oklahoma workers left USDA agencies in that time period:
- Natural Resources Conservation Service: 62 employees resigned or retired through the DRP
- Farm Service Agency: 55 people resigned or retired through the DRP, and notes two employees were terminated or removed
- Farm Production and Conservation Business Center: Five people retired or resigned through the DRP
- Food Safety and Inspection Service: 5 employees resigned through the DFP and two retired
- Food Nutrition Service: Two employees accepted the DRP.
- Agricultural Research Service: 15 accepted the DRP and there were other separations
- Economic Research Service: one person accepted the DRP
- National Agricultural Statistics Service: two employees accepted the DRP
- National Institute of Food and Agriculture: two separations
- Risk Management Agency: no worker changes
This is incomplete because certain subagencies of the USDA do not have dedicated offices or staff based in the state, or did not respond to KOSU in time for this story.
Nationally, the largest amount of staff cut came from the Forest Service, losing about 5,860 people. The NRCS saw the second biggest decrease with 2,673 employees lost.
In a statement, a USDA spokesperson said the department has a responsibility to use taxpayer dollars effectively.
"Under President Trump's leadership, USDA 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 USDA spokesperson said.
The USDA did not provide numbers of newly-hired or rehired employees during this timeframe. The spokesperson said in April the Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins exempted national security and public safety positions from the federal hiring freeze through a memorandum.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
