Eight of nine California agriculture field offices will remain open, USDA says
Eight of nine California agricultural field offices threatened with closure will remain open, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told Sen. Adam Schiff in a letter.
The field offices are crucial to the state’s agriculture industry, aiding farmers as they sell and market their crops and helping with disaster aid.
The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency had said it would end the leases of field offices in Bakersfield, Blythe, Los Angeles, Madera, Mount Shasta, Oxnard, Salinas, Woodland and Yreka.
Schiff, D-Calif., said Monday that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins “has informed me of their work with the General Services Administration to ensure that many of these USDA offices will remain open. “
The Mount Shasta office and newly added Brea office have not been removed from the list of terminations.
“We have confirmed that GSA (federal General Services Administration) has rescinded the termination notices for Bakersfield, Blythe, Los Angeles, and Salinas, and we will continue to work with GSA to ensure that the remaining termination notices are rescinded,” Rollins said in a letter to Schiff.
As for Mount Shasta, she said that “while GSA sent a termination notice to the lessor of the Forest Service lease in Mount Shasta, USDA is still in discussions with GSA concerning the viability of continuing that lease or if the services provided out of that office can be performed in a more suitable location.”
The agriculture department, Rollins wrote, “supports optimizing building capacity and consolidating underutilized offices to reduce inefficiencies, while continuing to prioritize frontline services for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities.”
Among the agencies served by the department’s California offices are the Farm Service Agency, Forest Service, Agricultural Marketing Service and others.
Schiff and other Democratic lawmakers wrote to Rollins and the General Services Administration’s acting administrator last month, urging them to keep the offices open.
“These terminations come at a time when farmers are already navigating an uncertain agricultural economy due to USDA funding freezes and cancellations as well as the impact of tariffs,” the lawmakers said in their letter.
The letter was signed by Schiff, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Also signing were Reps. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, Adam Gray, D-Merced, and Jim Costa, D-Fresno — all members of the house Agriculture Committee.
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