Kansas congressman urges USDA to address staffing shortages at local offices

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - A Kansas congressman is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to address staffing shortages at local offices.

Rep. Derek Schmidt joined 14 other members of Congress in a letter to the USDA urging immediate action so farmers can access services and resources.

Schmidt said he believes the Trump administration made the right move to reduce the federal workforce, but the downsize has had a downside for Kansas farmers.

“Sometimes decisions get made in Washington that look good on paper, but don’t make a lot of sense out in the countryside in Kansas. This is one of those examples,” Schmidt said.

Letter urges action

In the letter to the undersecretary for farm production and conservation at the USDA, Schmidt and other members of Congress urged the department to address staffing for local offices.

“If you take one or two of those people away, you might render the entire operation unable to do its work,” Schmidt said.

Offices like the one on West Central in Wichita are key for farmers to access services and programs provided by the federal government.

Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, said inadequate staffing for these offices is not a new problem.

“This goes back multiple administrations,” Levendofsky said.

Long-standing issue

Levendofsky is a farmer in Republic County. He said staffing for local USDA offices has long been one of the Kansas Farmers Union’s top issues.

“We were dealing with this in the Obama administration. We were dealing with it in Trump 1. They were starting to deal with it in the Biden administration by hiring people back. But unfortunately, when Secretary Rollins came into USDA a little over a year ago, the first thing she did was she let some of these staffers go,” Levendofsky said.

Levendofsky said some areas of the state have no one for farmers to talk to about crop insurance, loans or how to apply for the $12 billion assistance program recently passed for farmers struggling due to market disruptions and input costs.

“Some of these offices have zero staff in some of these cases, that means that those farmers have to go further and further out to get access to those services. And sometimes it means those farmers choose not to pursue those services. I’m glad to hear that somebody in Congress is finally making that a priority,” Levendofsky said.