Elon Musk called for entire agencies to be deleted from the federal government as part of the push under President Trump to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities.
Michelle Komiskey got her first job with the Natural Resources Conservation Service right after high school.
Over her 25-year career, Komiskey went from her hometown of Mauston all around Wisconsin to help farmers and other landowners take care of their land. She was helping local field office staff navigate software for the service’s programs when it came to an end.
Komiskey was one of more than 100 people just in Wisconsin who left the NRCS – as it is universally known – last year as the Trump administration quickly shrunk the size of federal government. Wisconsin’s loss of nearly 40% of its staff was one of the biggest hits in the country, according to data obtained by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Komiskey departed in March under a deferred resignation program, which allowed her and thousands of other federal workers to collect a paycheck for six months in exchange for resigning. The email she received with the offer described her and her colleagues as unproductive.
“It burned my soul that I quit my job because of this,” she said.
Staffing cuts could affect relationships
Agriculture takes a toll on land and water, and the NRCS plays a major role in helping farmers reduce those impacts.
The two most popular efforts are the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps farmers address a natural resource problem, and the Conservation Stewardship Program, which operates like a reward program, helping farmers who already pursue conservation to expand their work.
Conservation practices protect the earth by preventing soil erosion, protecting water quality and increasing wildlife habitat. They can include planting crops to cover the land outside of the growing season, creating vegetated “buffers” to catch sediment from running off fields and into streams, restoring wetlands, and installing fencing to help with rotational cattle grazing.
Ron Schoepp, a third-generation farmer in Lodi who has been recognized for his approach to sustainable agriculture, said a former conservation service staffer in his county wore him down about a decade ago and convinced him to enroll in the Conservation Stewardship Program.
He had avoided it because of the paperwork involved, but his first five-year contract with the program netted him $18,000.
“That’s what people with passion can do,” Schoepp said.
Komiskey worries that the recent staffing cuts could damage trust with farmers that took time to cultivate.
“Landowners did not like when we changed people,” she said. “When I came into a new position, I heard from landowners, ‘Now I’ve got to get to know you.'”
In western Wisconsin’s Monroe County, the county land conservation department shares an office with local NRCS staff. The partnership helps landowners get their conservation practices funded, no matter if it’s by federal or local dollars, said department director Bob Micheel.
When the cuts began, the NRCS technician in their office took a new job and wasn’t replaced – leaving the work with landowners to be split between the two county technicians. There’s “a little bit of a pull” to cover that loss, Micheel said, but he and his staff are trying to step up.
Could small-scale farmers be left out?
The NRCS in Wisconsin lost 123 employees from January 2025 through the end of the last federal fiscal year on Sept. 30, according to data from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Four out of every five left under the deferred resignation program.
Agency leadership declined to confirm those numbers.
Only six states, plus Washington, D.C., lost a greater percentage of staff, and only Texas and Kansas lost more staff to deferred resignation.
Becky Schewe, a research and policy analyst for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said in interviews she conducted with former NRCS staff, many of them expressed low morale.
“They felt like they were no longer able to serve farmers and do the things that they were passionate about,” she said.
Schoepp said he worries about the consequences not just for farmers, but for the public. He regularly invites students and other visitors to his farm to see how conservation practices work and why they matter, and would often have someone from the NRCS join to offer additional education.
Too often, Schoepp said, people view conservation payments to farmers as merely a cost to taxpayers.
“They don’t realize how much it saves on the other end. How much less flooding, less polluted water,” he said. “It doesn’t cost as much as you think.”
NRCS employees get that message out, he said. With fewer of them, it will be harder to do.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration saw farm conservation programs as key to combatting climate change because some practices increase carbon storage or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With additional funds from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the amount of money Wisconsin received for farm conservation programs through the NRCS nearly doubled.
Now, Michael Happ, program associate for Climate and Rural Communities at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said he wouldn’t be surprised to see fewer applicants getting access to conservation programs.
“With less staff, there’s going to be a lot more pressure to get big contracts out the door. The money that’s there will be eaten up by one or two big contracts,” Happ said. “I think this development will really hurt small-scale farmers.”
In a statement, Nathan Fikkert, Wisconsin state conservationist for the NRCS, said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and NRCS Chief Aubrey Bettencourt will ensure that the agency has the resources and personnel to continue its service.
Since departing the NRCS, Komiskey got a substitute teaching license, opened a sourdough bakery and continues to work with her husband on their farm in Mauston. She said she trusts her former colleagues who remained with the agency to keep getting the job done.
Still, she described leaving as traumatic.
“It’s so crazy to me that I’m not doing it anymore,” she said. “It was really a fantastic career.”
Madeline Heim covers public health and environmental issues for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at 920-996-7266 or [email protected].
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