The USDA reorganization Iowa food safety announcement came April 23, 2026, when Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins confirmed that Urbandale, Iowa will become the new primary headquarters for the Food Safety and Inspection Service under a new National Food Safety Center. The center will house approximately 200 administrative, technical, and support employees. The move places food safety operations closer to the agricultural and food production systems that FSIS actually regulates. About two-thirds of FSIS staff currently working in the Washington D.C. area will be relocated, while roughly 100 positions will remain in the capital. Critically, the change will not affect more than 85 percent of FSIS staff — those who inspect food processing facilities in the field — since they already work outside D.C.
USDA has requested more than $50 million in its FY2027 budget to fund the reorganization. Across all agencies, USDA expects more than 2,000 employees to be asked to relocate out of the D.C. region. Based on the 2019 precedent — when USDA moved ERS and NIFA to Kansas City — a Government Accountability Office report found that most staff choose not to move. ERS lost 121 full-time staff in that transition. NIFA lost 157. Both agencies took roughly two fiscal years to rebuild their staffing levels, and a large share of employees in 2021 had less than two years of experience at their agencies.
USDA reorganization Iowa food safety move is part of a broader research and data shake-up
Beyond FSIS, USDA announced additional shifts in its Research, Education and Economics mission area. The Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture will move more staff from D.C. to Kansas City, where both agencies were partially relocated in 2019. Staff from those agencies that scattered across the country after the 2019 move will now be required to consolidate in Kansas City “as originally intended,” USDA stated. The National Agricultural Statistics Service — which produces USDA’s market, crop, and statistical reports — will relocate additional staff to St. Louis or other existing NASS field offices. NASS has just over 500 total employees. USDA did not specify how many would be moved.
FSIS will also establish a science center in Athens, Georgia, tied to its Eastern Field Services Laboratory, and create a new international affairs office in Fort Collins, Colorado. USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden said the changes are about execution and accountability. “We are aligning our workforce and infrastructure with the Department’s core mission,” he said. For context on the budget side of the USDA reorganization, Agroinformacion covered the House Appropriations FY27 USDA bill released the same day, which cuts total spending by $380 million.
Beltsville research center to close after more than a century of agricultural science
One of the most significant long-term consequences of the reorganization is the planned phase-out of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland. BARC has operated for more than a century and houses more than 400 buildings, many of which USDA describes as outdated, underutilized, or in need of significant maintenance. Research programs currently housed at Beltsville will be relocated to other Agricultural Research Service facilities around the country. The closure ends a era for one of the most storied institutions in American agricultural science. The announcement comes after USDA already lost roughly 20,000 employees through deferred resignations and job terminations in 2025. The original reporting was published by DTN Progressive Farmer on April 23, 2026.