USDA REORGANIZATION COULD CLOSE HUNDREDS OF OFFICES

A U.S. Department of Agriculture reorganization plan is expected to go to the full House next week.

A staff member for U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Mo., said the House was ready to discuss the plan last week until the bill was pulled from the calendar over some disputed language in the measure.

The bill calls for reorganizing field offices of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, Farmers Home Administration and Soil Conservation Service, which would result in the closing of hundreds of offices.

A recent Kiplinger Washington Letter reported that as many as 1,000 USDA field offices could be closed by consolidating several agencies and boarding up lesser-used offices.

Neil Moseman, of Emerson's office in Washington, said the closings could total more than 1,000. "We've heard a lot of numbers -- from 1,000 to 2,500," he said. "At this time, there are no firm figures."

Emerson wants some scaling back at the top of what he calls the "USDA Washington bureaucracy."

That is one of the congressman's chief concerns with the USDA reorganization plan. "The bill gives no criteria on what county offices will close or remain," Emerson said. "Rather, it allows the Washington USDA bureaucracy to make determinations. The USDA bureaucracy is trying to decide what's best for Missouri agriculture without asking Missouri farmers. That sounds like Washington has got it backwards."

Emerson said farmers should be included in planning the reorganization before a single county office is locked for good.

Missouri already has started restructuring its state offices, drawing up a blueprint that has been sent to the national office.

Mark Nussbaum, area engineer for Southeast Missouri Soil Conservation Service district office at Cape Girardeau, said the drawdown already has started in Southeast Missouri.

"We have scheduled SCS office closings in Iron, Madison, Carter and Reynolds counties," Nussbaum said.

Under the restructuring there have been no layoffs, and early retirements and attrition is expected to account for the personnel cuts.

There also has been discussions about combining some ASCS and FmHA offices in Southeast Missouri.

When the reorganization bill was introduced under former USDA head Edward Madigan, it called for the elimination of 2,658 offices. There are more than 7,000 offices in 3,700 sites nationwide.

The network of USDA offices was created during the Depression, when 20 percent of Americans lived on farms. With less than 1 percent of the population farming today, many believe a USDA drawdown makes sense.