Why It Matters

The Senate Agriculture Committee convened a USDA oversight hearing on June 10 that put Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on the hot seat over farm bankruptcies, a spreading livestock pest, and workforce cuts, even as she defended the administration's agricultural record. The Trump administration's projections of confidence in trade deals and preparedness collided directly with Democratic data on rising farm failures and constituent distress.

The Big Picture

The hearing, called by Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chair Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), came amid a convergence of pressures. There were six confirmed domestic cases of New World Screwworm in the past week; a 46 percent year-over-year increase in Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies; and ongoing fallout from USDA workforce reductions tied to the administration's government efficiency effort. It was Rollins' fifth congressional appearance since her January 2025 confirmation, following a House Agriculture Committee hearing just six days earlier that devolved into a dispute over whether farm country is in crisis or recovery. The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which passed the House 224-200, still awaits Senate action ahead of the August recess.

What They're Saying

Ranking Member Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) opened with a blunt assessment of the farm economy:

  • "Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies increase for the second year in a row, reaching 315 filings in 2025."
  • "The AIPA tariffs added nearly one billion in costs to critical inputs like fertilizers, seed machinery, and chemicals."
  • "One year ago, the average price for a gallon of diesel in my state was $3.40. Today the average is $5.13."

Rollins pushed back, framing the current moment as a correction from the Biden era:

  • "Farm income saw the largest dollar value loss in history as it fell over $90 billion from 2023 to 2024."
  • "We've cut the agricultural trade deficit in half in one year."
  • "We had over 110 full-time staff working on the New World Screwworm before it was even confirmed."

Klobuchar characterized Rollins as a potential internal check on the administration, but expressed doubt, saying that "I fear that these voices of reason are falling on deaf ears." Rollins did not dispute the framing directly, instead pointing to Trump's Wisconsin remarks expressing a desire to do more for farmers as evidence of presidential commitment.

On screwworm, Rollins was assertive. She told the committee that when she asked the president for $1 billion to build sterile fly capacity roughly 14 months ago, he approved it "without hesitation." She credited that early investment with allowing USDA to surge from roughly 10 full-time employees working on screwworm to more than 110 today.

Political Stakes

Rollins entered the hearing carrying fresh credibility questions. She had publicly described the screwworm as "a little pest" in the days before the hearing, a reversal from her earlier characterization of it as "terrifying," handing Democrats a ready-made contrast. A federal lawsuit filed in May accuses her of unconstitutionally coercive religious messaging to USDA employees, with the National Federation of Federal Employees and seven USDA workers alleging that her frequent invocations of Jesus Christ in work emails left staff "feeling unwelcome, excluded and like outsiders." She did not address the lawsuit at the hearing.

For the administration, the structural challenge is harder to deflect. The same DOGE-driven workforce reductions championed as fiscal discipline are now being linked directly to an active biosecurity emergency. USDA lost nearly 22,000 employees across 2025 and 2026, including roughly 36 percent of Rural Development staff. A federal employee union president wrote to lawmakers arguing the 2026 appropriations law explicitly prohibited reorganization activities without prior congressional notice.

Klobuchar and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) announced they would send a letter after the hearing on the DOGE-related screwworm program cuts. Luján, whose state confirmed a screwworm case in a dog, pressed Rollins directly on resource adequacy and reported that she committed to prioritizing every affected state.

Yes, But

The most notable friction at the hearing did not come from Democrats. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) publicly called out USDA before the hearing for delaying rulemaking under the Packers and Stockyards Act, writing on June 1 that the decision "places meat packers' bottom line over family farmers." At the hearing, he asked Rollins directly about the delay. She answered that she would get back to him. That non-response, from a senior Republican to a Cabinet secretary of his own party, was the clearest sign of intra-party tension in the session. Separately, Grassley was celebratory on E15 and said that Rollins reaffirmed presidential support for permanent year-round sales, but his frustration on small farmer protections was unresolved when the hearing ended.

What's Next

The Senate must act on the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 before the August recess. Boozman said he expects to release Farm Bill 2.0 text soon incorporating bipartisan priorities. The committee also advanced the nomination of Glen Smith as USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development, with a full Senate confirmation vote pending. Klobuchar and Luján's planned letter on screwworm-related staffing cuts will add to the documentary record for potential follow-up oversight. USDA's fiscal year 2027 budget, which proposes a 19 percent cut to discretionary spending, remains unresolved in appropriations negotiations.

The Bottom Line

Rollins held her ground, but Grassley's unresolved Packers and Stockyards frustration and Klobuchar's bankruptcy data left the hearing without a clean resolution on whether USDA's reorganization and the administration's trade policies are helping or hurting the farmers whom both sides say they want to protect.

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