More Than Two-Thirds at Agriculture Research Office Reject Relocation

Government Executive: Just over two months before their offices are scheduled to move from Washington to the Kansas City area, some 71% of staffers at the Agriculture Department’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture say they won’t go.

In response to the controversial plan launched last August by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to move NIFA and the Economic Research Service to a locality closer to farm country, the recently unionized Local 3403 of the American Federation of Government Employees canvassed most of the employees of a NIFA staff that has already shrunk from a full complement of 315 in January to 224.

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