HONOLULU (DTN) -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack used the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting as a backdrop to announce $150 million in office cuts and consolidation under the guise of USDA's "Blueprint for Stronger Service."

Vilsack told farmers the office cuts were a necessary response to more than $3 billion in cuts to USDA's discretionary budget by Congress since 2010.

"Over the course of the last year or so we have obviously been challenged with reduced budgets," Vilsack said in a press conference.

USDA will close 131 Farm Service Agency offices this year and eliminate another 118 offices in other agencies for a total of 259 offices, facilities or labs being closed.

"You know and I know the time has come to get our country's fiscal house in order -- and that requires tough calls and tough choices," Vilsack said in his speech.

Vilsack touted the cuts as a way to streamline USDA operations through the administration's push to reduce costs and make the government operate more efficiently. The agriculture secretary's budget-cutting plan comes on the heels of the Department of Defense rolling out an even more aggressive plan for $487 billion in cuts over the next 10 years. Vilsack was asked if every federal agency will be making comparable announcements.

"I don't know whether other departments are doing it at this point and time, but it's reasonable to assume we're all going to be faced with this because we have to get our fiscal house in order," he said. "My thought was I would rather be proactive. I would rather take the time to do it comprehensively than be forced to do it in a short period of time when your options are very limited."

The office closures are "separate and distinct" from the discussions that will occur on budget cuts for the farm bill over the next year. Vilsack told farmers the farm-bill programs will likely face somewhere in the range of $23 billion to $48 billion in cuts over 10 years, considering those figures were the range of budget cuts for USDA programs proposed last year in Congress and by the Obama administration.

Of the 131 FSA office closures, Vilsack said the shutdowns would cause an inconvenience to farmers but no loss of services. The list includes 35 offices that currently have no employees. The rest of the offices being eliminated have either one or two employees and are within 20 miles of another FSA office.

USDA has eliminated nearly 7,000 positions in the department since 2010, mainly through early retirements. Vilsack said that was a better option than furloughs or layoffs, particularly with civil employees who can bump less senior people, thus dragging out the layoffs. That has translated into the department doing more work with fewer people as the Farm Service Agency has done more than 103,000 farm loans amounting to $14 billion in credit, as well as implementing the farm programs from the 2008 farm bill, Vilsack said, along with home loans and record conservation enrollments.

Vilsack said USDA "wanted to make sure we continued the service that is important to people, that matters to people" so the department began a process looking at travel costs, reduced purchases and consolidating business services to save as much as $90 million in overall funding.

Vilsack also said he had talked to congressional leaders on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and appropriations subcommittees, as well as the leader of the Black Congressional Caucus.

Beyond FSA, USDA announced other office closures in the following agencies:

--Agricultural Research Service: Close 12 programs in 10 locations in 2012.

--Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service: 15 office closures in 11 states and five office closures overseas.

--Foreign Agricultural Service: Two office closures in Sweden and Syria.

--Food Nutrition and Consumer Services: 31 field offices will be closed in 28 states and consolidated in a more regional approach.

--Food Safety Inspection Service: Consolidate 15 district offices into 10. USDA stated new technology and work-share agreements have reduced the need for these facilities. Vilsack said it likely will take longer than a year to fully implement the FSIS cuts.

--Natural Resources Conservation Service: 24 office closures in 21 states.

--Rural Development: 43 office closures in 17 states. Like FSA, USDA stated in most cases the offices were either not staffed or had one or two employees.

For a map of USDA office closures, go to http://dld.bz/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at chris.clayton@telventdtn.com

(CZ/SK)

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