WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will move to sell two major office properties in the nation’s capital and launch a department-wide technology overhaul aimed at reducing costs and simplifying services for farmers, officials announced this week.
What This Means for You
- USDA plans to sell the South Building and Braddock Place in Washington, D.C., citing high maintenance costs and low occupancy.
- A new “One Farmer, One File” system aims to create a single digital record for farmers across multiple USDA programs.
- The broader reorganization and modernization effort is expected to continue through 2028.
Federal Buildings Targeted for Disposal
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins and Deputy Secretary Stephen A. Vaden, joined by General Services Administrator Edward C. Forst, announced the imminent disposal of the USDA South Building and Braddock Place in Washington, D.C.
Rollins said more than 85 percent of the South Building is unoccupied and that the facility faces a $1.6 billion backlog in deferred maintenance — meaning repairs and upkeep that have been postponed, increasing long-term costs.
“This is a long overdue move to protect American taxpayer dollars from being wasted on expensive real estate inside the Washington, D.C. area when our government should be closer to the farmers and ranchers we serve,” Rollins said.
Vaden said the move aligns with President Donald J. Trump’s stated goal of relocating parts of the federal workforce outside the National Capital Region, the area encompassing Washington and surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia. He described the sale as the beginning of a broader USDA reorganization.
The announcement marks the start of USDA’s formal Reorganization Plan, which officials said will be carried out according to federal law and in coordination with Congress and employees. No timeline for employee relocations or property sales was immediately provided.
Forst said the General Services Administration, which manages federal property, will oversee the process as part of an effort to reduce the federal real estate portfolio.
‘One Farmer, One File’ Modernization
On Wednesday, speaking at the Commodity Classic Convention in San Antonio, Texas, Rollins announced a separate initiative called “One Farmer, One File,” a multi-year technology modernization project.
The program aims to create a single, unified digital record for each farmer that can be accessed across multiple USDA agencies. Currently, farmers often must provide similar information separately to different USDA offices.
USDA’s Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service and Risk Management Agency administer programs ranging from crop insurance to disaster assistance and conservation incentives. Under the new system, those agencies would share a consolidated record, reducing duplicate paperwork.
“The modernization of old, duplicative, wasteful systems has one goal in mind, improve our customer service so the people we serve are able to farm and feed America and the world,” Rollins said.
USDA said work on the unified system began in 2025, with major advancements planned in 2026 and full completion anticipated in 2028. The department said the effort will retire older information technology systems and reduce what it described as “agency silos,” meaning separate internal systems that do not communicate with each other.
Officials said the modernization is intended to reduce administrative burdens on producers, streamline program delivery and lower spending on multiple, overlapping technology platforms.
Deregulatory Agenda Announced
While in Texas, Rollins also launched what she called a Deregulatory Agenda for American Agriculture and Consumers. According to USDA, the initiative includes a series of regulatory rollbacks intended to reduce compliance requirements for farmers and ranchers.
USDA stated that in the past year, the Trump Administration eliminated 129 regulations for every new one issued, resulting in $211.8 billion in net cost savings. The department did not provide additional details about which regulations were affected.
Together, the property sales, modernization effort and deregulatory actions form part of a broader restructuring effort that USDA officials said is designed to reduce costs and reshape how the department delivers services nationwide.
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