Senate agriculture panel scrutiny centers on USDA reorganization and farm cost pressures

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Senate scrutiny on USDA, farm costs

Highlights

Klobuchar reports a second USDA disaster payment delivered over $700 million to Minnesota farmers for 2023 and 2024 losses this spring.
The USDA has lost about 20% of its workforce amid planned relocations to Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Salt Lake City, sparking concerns about service disruptions.
Farm input costs rose nearly $1 billion under IEEPA tariffs last year while Minnesota diesel prices surged to $5.13 per gallon, straining 70% of farmers' fertilizer affordability.

Hearing focus turns to costs and USDA operations

As reported by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Minority News, Klobuchar opens the hearing by urging progress on bipartisan farm policy while raising concerns about SNAP cost shifts to states, E-15 legislation and the timing of USDA's restructuring plan.

She thanks Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins for expedited disaster assistance tied to 2023 and 2024 losses, saying a second payment delivered more than $700 million to Minnesota farmers this spring. Klobuchar also points to recently confirmed New World Screwworm cases in Texas and New Mexico, saying USDA needs a sustained response and warning that staff reductions could weaken that effort.

Klobuchar says the department has already lost about 20% of its employees, which she argues leaves fewer Farm Service Agency staff to process loans and disaster aid, fewer conservation specialists to support farm programs and fewer researchers working on agricultural threats. She says planned agency relocations to cities including Indianapolis, Kansas City and Salt Lake City risk further disruption rather than improving service for producers.

Tariffs, fertilizer and fuel add to rural strain

Klobuchar says the Administration's tariff policy is driving up costs for fertilizers, seed, machinery and chemicals, citing nearly $1 billion in added expenses from February through October of last year under IEEPA tariffs. She argues farmers are now facing another layer of uncertainty as additional tariffs move ahead.

She also links the conflict in the Middle East to rising diesel and fertilizer costs, saying the average diesel price in Minnesota has climbed to $5.13 a gallon from $3.40 a year earlier. Klobuchar says fertilizer markets remain vulnerable because large shares of global urea and ammonia exports move through the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for nitrogen supply chains.

Referring to Farm Bureau estimates from earlier this spring, she says 70% of farmers cannot afford all the fertilizer they need and 94% report their financial condition has worsened or stayed flat over the past year. She says the combination of fuel prices, fertilizer costs, tariffs and reduced staffing creates what one soybean farmer calls a "perfect storm of ugly" for growers trying to make business decisions.

Our earlier coverage of the New World screwworm detections in Texas and New Mexico outlined USDA’s containment steps, including sterile-fly releases, quarantine zones, and expanded surveillance to limit spread. We also noted the risk that additional livestock losses or movement restrictions could further tighten already-low cattle supplies and add upward pressure to beef prices, with estimates putting a large-scale outbreak’s economic damage in the billions.

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