2-8 FB Consolidating FSA

A recent press release said The Idaho Farm Service Agency State Office Management Team will hold public meetings to solicit public comment regarding USDA’s proposed office consolidation plan is being undertaken as a result of budget and staff reductions to FSA. This means that FSA cannot maintain every existing county office location and continue to provide producers the best possible customer service.  I called Dick Rush who is Idaho’s executive director: “What does the consolidation of offices mean? To me it means we are reducing the workforce that served the farmers. Going back, the immediate office consolidation does not have any reduction in employees. Nationally, FSA  has reduced their workforce about 12 ½%. In Idaho that amounted to 16 positions. We were able to handle that totally through voluntary retirements, there were some incentives offered, and we are down over 10% of our employees just from what we were from a couple of months ago. We feel comfortable we can provide service to farmers. I am pleased that a number of farmers are concerned because if we were to close these offices and nobody cared, I would be even more concerned. All of those employees will just go to the adjoining office and they will handle the same farmers. We can  provide service.