During the recent Commodity Classic in San Antonio, Texas, USDA Undersecretary Richard Fordyce talked about a new “One Farmer, One File” initiative at the agency.
“The Secretary said your file will follow you when you go from NRCS to FSA to RMA. It’s long, long, long overdue, and we do. The Secretary made a point that DOGE and some of the architects are actually folks who looked at these antiquated legacy systems and said, ‘Oh my gosh, these things are going to break,’ and really designed kind of the pathway forward. And so, I’m super happy to be a part of it.”
The USDA also rolled out the Farmer Bride Assistance Program last week, and a large number of farmers have already signed up at login.gov.
“We did deploy the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program on Monday, actually urging farmers to get a login.gov account, and the Secretary talked about it in her remarks in the general session. But those of us who have worked on this, those of us who have participated in years previously without an opportunity like this, were walking around on Monday and Tuesday here at the Commodity Classic with smiles on our faces, because we have, right now, we have a counter. It’s counting all the time. Almost 37,000 applications have gone through the farmer.gov, security front door.”