Department of Agriculture

According to Secretary Brooke Collins speaking on February 14th, DOGE has been working within the agency since the beginning of February. It’s clear why DOGE would be active within USDA - the agency not only distributes a large number of grants and is a significant regulatory entity. But there has been limited visibility into what DOGE has actually been doing there.

Positions

Position Date Person
OPM USDA
c.2/01
c.2/01 detail court doc
DOGE USDA
c.2/01
c.2/01 detail «no direct confirmation, but linked to agency by NYT, and other DOGE staff there in early Feb» NYT
USDA
2/10
2/10 appointed Senior Team Leader on Government Efficiency ProPublica

Systems

System Dates Access
NPS 4/XX- A system which tracks information about payments and loans for farmers, ranchers and other agricultural producers. The Farm Service Agency already provides public data extracts, so this system would only be used to get access to sensitive information in loan applications and disbursements. It might also possibly be used in DOGE's anti-immigration efforts.

Events

Agency Date Event
2/14
2/14
In a speech, the Secretary of Agriculture says DOGE has been at the agency for “a few weeks”
2/20
2/20
In emails with USDA staff to identify climate-related terms to look for and cancel in grants, Gavin Kliger also alludes to DOGE developing LLM models for analyzing grant descriptions for specific language.
2/21
2/21
USDA Secretary Rollins posts a photo of a grant-cancellation session on the @DOGE_USDA account
2/25
2/25
The Chief Human Capital Office of the Department of Agriculture testifies to Congress that OPM ordered the firing of all probationary federal employees
April 2025
4/01
4/01
Federal staff at the USDA are sent an email offering them another chance to do a deferred resignation if they enroll within the next week or so
4/XX
4/XX
Jordan Wick is granted high-level access to the National Payment Service (NPS) system, which would allow him to see and alter payments or even cancel loans to farmers and other agricultural producers. Concerningly, his activities are not logged or recorded.
4/29
4/29
A letter is sent to all USDA staff informing them that DOGE staffers would be reviewing all farm loans above $500,000 as well as loans of any size to “formal entities,” which could mean everything from small farms to large corporations. Loans are already reviewed by highly qualified and experienced loan officers at the USDA.
May 2025
5/05
5/05
USDA reports to Congress that 15,000 of its employees (15% of its workforce) have taken one of the two deferred resignation programs
5/06
5/06
The Department of Agriculture sends a letter to the state directors of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program citing the March 20th executive order that grants DOGE unfettered access to federal and state data and demanding they turn over data on recipients dating back to 2020-01-01 or face consequences
c.5/25
c.5/25
Over 200 loan recipients have their birth date voided and their accounts closed in the National Payment Service (NPS) system. This action was likely taken by Jordan Wick in response to discovering that some number of loan recipients had “1900” as their birth years (DOGE presumed similar circumstances at SSA indicated fraud when it was really issues with data entry). It is possible that this action was a pretext for closing other accounts. (fuzz: date just reported as late May)
July 2025
7/10
7/10
A USDA employee tells Wired that they have been told to refer to the DOGE team at the agency as the USDA Digital Service instead.
7/10
7/10
A USDA staffer (and USDA spokesperson later confirms) that the DOGE team in the agency is now referred to as the USDA Efficiency Team or “E Team.” The spokesperson then went on to say that the team has an “unmatched skillset in protecting our data and ensuring those that use their positions to access systems to defraud American taxpayers, will be held accountable.”

Questions

  • Has DOGE tried to seize control of the National Finance Center operations at the USDA?
    In March, there were confirmed reports that a high-level DOGE staffer, Stephanie Holmes, had been granted admin access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System at DOI, which provides payroll services to multiple agencies. The NFC at USDA is another big system for payroll. Has the DOGE team at USDA tried to gain access?