Source: POLTICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 3/19/19

The White House's release of supplementary budget documents on Monday included its rationales for reducing funding for many USDA programs and eliminating some entirely. Trump's fiscal 2020 budget request, a wish list it unveiled last week, calls for a 15 percent reduction in overall USDA funding.

Congress is expected to largely ignore Trump's budget agenda. The White House wants to put USDA's main research arm — the Economic Research Service — on the chopping block. The blueprint calls for ERS funding to be lowered by $26 million, or nearly 30 percent, compared with its prior-year level. The White House would deliver that reduction by scrapping "low priority" research that it believes is "duplicative of research at land-grant universities," according to a new document that outlines "major savings."

Forest and rangeland research money would be cut by $45 million, and money for research in recreation, bioenergy and urban stewardship would be reduced or eliminated.

The White House also identified Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue's plan to relocate ERS and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture out of the Washington area as another opportunity for savings, in part due to the high cost of living in the capital region.
ERS jobs would also be sharply reduced in number: The White House envisions a budget that includes money for 160 full-time employees at ERS, lowering the agency's total staff by more than 50 percent from its fiscal 2019 estimate of 329, though not all of those positions are currently filled.

Forest Service research would also see positions eliminated as part of a White House proposal to "reorient" the agency to focus on wildfire research and the Forest Inventory and Analysis program. Read more from yours truly.