Democrats on a U.S. House spending panel slammed President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to farm and nutrition programs Thursday, as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins pledged to collaborate with members of both parties to address their concerns.

The president’s budget request would make deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gutting programs to help feed hungry people and support farmers in need — even as the rising costs of groceries, gas and other necessities made those programs even more essential, Democrats on the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee told Rollins.

“It’ll be hard for our constituents to believe that USDA serves America’s farmers and rural communities when USDA is taking away their services,” the panel’s ranking Democrat, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, said.

The proposed USDA budget for fiscal 2027 would cut $4.9 billion, or nearly one-fifth of the department’s budget. Already, due to the Republican spending and tax cuts law last year, 2.5 million people have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the department’s major food assistance initiative.

Trump overall in his budget request is seeking a huge boost in defense spending accompanied by cuts in domestic programs.

Accessibility, cooperation promised

Rollins defended the budget proposal, but projected a spirit of cooperation with the panel, which writes the annual spending bill for her department, telling Democrats and Republicans that she would be happy to address their priorities. She offered to field direct phone calls from several members.

Asked by Michigan Republican Rep. John Moolenaar about foreign growers undercutting U.S. sugar producers, she said she was ready to take on the issue in upcoming trade negotiations.

“We’ve got a lot going on around the world, but anything you hear, Congressman, that you think would be helpful for me, any way I can lean in… I would love to get more involved in that,” she said. “We are making progress but it does need to remain a priority.”

Rollins also touted some of her department’s wins over the past year, noting that bird flu cases were down 61% and that egg prices had also dropped. 

The administration has also increased exports of key crops and Republicans’ massive spending and tax cuts bill raised the exemption to the federal estate tax that allows more family farms to be inherited with fewer taxes, she said. 

She also called the Make America Healthy Again initiative that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spearheaded, with USDA also playing a major part, “one of our most important legacies.”

She agreed to Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree’s request to develop a “comprehensive overview” for the Make America Healthy Again philosophy.

Rollins vows no Farm Service Agency closures

Democrats on the panel, including leading members Bishop and full Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, hammered the budget request’s many cuts.

The budget would eliminate more than 70 USDA programs and was particularly ill-timed as prices continue to climb, DeLauro said,

“The price of everyday goods continues to escalate: Grocery prices are up, gas prices are up, utility costs, housing costs, health care costs are through the roof,” she said. “And the administration’s only plan is to decimate the public programs that help alleviate the strain on working families and farmers across the country.”

Bishop complained that assistance from the Farm Service Agency, which provides credit, disaster relief and other financial programs, would be more difficult for farmers to access.

Rollins sought to justify the proposed decrease, noting that the cuts Bishop mentioned made up only about 4% of the total department budget. 

But she also said she would never close a Farm Service Agency office and offered to work directly with the Democrat and others to address understaffed offices.

“But as we are looking to make sure we are honoring the taxpayer, making sure we’re doing the best we can with every tax dollar, while putting the farmers first, (we are) taking key advice from you,” she said. 

She added that members should contact the department “if you hear of an FSA office that isn’t fully staffed, or that the farmers aren’t getting what they need — and I realize they’re out there, I’m not living in some Pollyanna world, these are very difficult times.”

She ended her dialogue with Bishop by telling him to “feel free to call me, sir, anytime.”

Power of the purse

DeLauro and Bishop led a push to assert Congress’ power to control spending, executed by Appropriations committees in both chambers.

Bishop said he expected USDA to “not circumvent this appropriations process by refusing to spend or obligate program funding once it is signed into law.”

DeLauro quizzed Rollins about a grant program that was created in a December 2024 law to assist farmers hit by extreme weather events over the prior two years. “Not a single dime” of the $220 million appropriated in the law had been allocated to qualifying states, DeLauro said.

Again, Rollins was conciliatory, saying the issue was a priority for the department and that funding for DeLauro’s home state was “at the finish line.”

“Yes ma’am, we’re moving on that,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will transfer a large office building to the General Services Administration in a step toward shrinking the department’s footprint in and around Washington, D.C., Secretary Brooke Rollins said Wednesday.

More than 70% of offices at the USDA’s South Building, in Washington, sit empty on any given day, while deferred maintenance costs have piled up past $1 billion, Rollins said at a press conference in front of the building.

“Behind me, along this entire city block in bricks and mortar, is what government that has grown too big, too bloated and too disconnected from its citizens looks like,” Rollins said. “That all changes starting today, because today we are officially starting the process of turning the South Building back over to the General Services Administration.”

The department will also vacate leased space at an office in Alexandria, Virginia, USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden said.

The moves are part of a plan the department outlined in July 2025 to shift its workers out of the capital region, reducing the workforce in D.C., Maryland and Virginia from 4,600 to around 2,000 while expanding regional hubs throughout the country.

Rollins said Wednesday the move was the “next step to right-size our federal real estate footprint to root out waste, fraud and abuse.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who has long advocated for shrinking the federal government, applauded the move and urged department officials to consider her state as a target for relocation.

“Let’s just keep on draining the swamp, and, Secretary Rollins, moving our federal workers closer to the people that they represent,” Ernst said. “And I would say that the great state of Iowa is a good place to start.”

Workforce to relocate

Workers in the department’s Food and Nutrition Service who currently report to the Virginia office will relocate to Washington, D.C., Vaden said. 

The broader reorganization would ramp up over the summer, allowing employees with school-aged children to finish the academic year in the capital area and complete their relocation in time for the next school year, he said.

That will require a series of steps required by laws, regulations and union contracts, Vaden said. 

The July plan said the effort to spread the USDA workforce out from D.C. would take years. It included expanded regional offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City.

The department would also maintain administrative support locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Minneapolis and agency service centers in St. Louis; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Missoula, Montana, according to a July 24 memo.

South Building future unclear

GSA Administrator Edward Forst said the move represented “a very preliminary stage” and declined to provide a timeline for the transfer to be complete.

“I don’t want to commit to a time frame other than I have two years and 10 months left in this job,” he said. “And we’re going to get a lot done in that time frame.”

Vaden said the USDA reorganization would be complete by the end of 2026.

Forst said USDA’s transfer of the South Building triggered a long and comprehensive process to find a new use. The agency would consult with stakeholders, including the private sector, and that the district’s prosperity was among its priorities. 

“We’re committed to economic prosperity for D.C.,” he said. “That’s one of our initiatives. We also talk to the private sector and others about the best case use and how we also deliver the best results for the American taxpayer. So it is a long, it’s a comprehensive process. We want to be good listeners, and then we’ll execute on this.”