Staring out at 80 acres of snow-dusted weeds choking my organic soybean crop, I see a herd of deer eating what’s left after 80% of our crops were lost to equipment failures and weather. Organic farming for the small farmer is unforgiving. I see a puddle of oil under the combine, our property taxes are overdue … and I thought I had enough to worry about…
Now I can add to my list that federal employees, which I am on the side, may not be allowed to continue working remotely under a Trump administration.
DOGE intends to cancel remote work flexibilities in government via Executive Order next year, in a bid to induce us to quit, and thus, reduce the size of government.
But I think that's a bad idea if it's done wholesale without taking a look at the unintended consequences in some circumstances.
Remote and telework can be critical arrangements for federal employees who are also small farmers, and it turns out there are many of us.
Sure, we'd be small farmers all the time if we could, but we can't do that without doing some kind of supplemental work on the side, which here in Michigan, is of necessity government work. Now we do both well.
If the Trump administration and the American people want small farms and capable bureaucrats, they must retain these flexibilities for farmer-bureaucrats.
It's not as if this just started with COVID lockdowns. Since 1990, the federal government has offered telework opportunities, and a whole economic ecosystem has grown around it.
According to OMB, as of May 2024, 50% of federal employees are not eligible for telework, and those that are spent 60% of their time in the office.
After three decades of available telework options, some of us farmers (and in Michigan, we are very intense Trump supporters) didn’t expect an abrupt end to it – especially just to induce attrition.
Are there gross inefficiencies in the government today? Absolutely. Do seven people need to approve a travel request for a $150 overnight trip?
No. Godspeed DOGE!
However, there are considerations the Trump administration should make for small farmers.
Let me be absolutely clear, it’s not about working on your tractor while on Uncle Sam’s clock.
It’s about being able to afford to farm at all and the unique value farmer-bureaucrats bring to government.
First, the cost of farmland within a reasonable driving distance of any office is out of reach for those not independently wealthy. Worse yet, the USDA reports that the cost of farmland has increased 37% since 2020 and 206% since 2010. By my office in Michigan, farmland is $10-20k/acre, but 1.5 hours away I was able to buy land for $6k/acre. Commuting this distance 1-2 days a week is doable, but doing it every day is out of the question. It would mean our farm would have to be sold. It’s not a viable commute, especially with children in school.
Second, small farmers must have diverse sources of income to survive. The average gross income from an 80-acre farm (conventional soybean crop) is approximately $36,000/year. A recent USDA census indicates that 62% of all farmers (who had time to respond to the survey) have jobs off the farm. Federal employment can work well for small farmers, but flexibilities like telework are essential.
There is no available estimate of how many federal employees are farmers, but it’s not unthinkable that it could include thousands -- who farm tens of thousands of acres. For example, in 2022 the USDA estimated that veterans farmed over 108 million acres, and in 2023, 30% of federal workers were veterans. Shutting down this arrangement could cost our country its independent small farms which would either go fallow or end up sold to major corporate agribusiness interests.
Third, farmer-bureaucrats are extremely well-rounded.
It’s faulty logic to assume all bureaucrats are bad and will quit if remote work ends. Most federal workers will suck it up to keep their pensions.
More importantly, most farmer-bureaucrats understand why voters are so frustrated with U.S. bureaucracy. We understand profit, loss, running a business, machinery, inflation, and regulations that make sense and those that don’t. We are who DOGE should want to employ. Some of us barely survived the years-long “Biden-Harris” administration’s attempt to purge us with the vaxx-mandate, this new threat is equally unwelcome.
Elon Musk recently said “We should leave the farmers alone” with respect to the U.K.’s death taxes. President Trump has acknowledged the U.S. is losing small family farms. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has talked about the importance of small and organic farms.
President Trump said his USDA pick Brooke Rollins will “spearhead the effort to protect American farmers, who truly are the backbone of our country.” Sen. Joni Ernst has spoken about how her father ran a small construction business while running a farm.
I hope they will help Trump support small farmer-bureaucrats by allowing us to continue working remotely, what’s the harm?
To do this, the Trump administration just needs to allow federal workers who file a Schedule F form (“Profit or Loss from Farming”) with the IRS to continue whatever telework agreement they currently have (noting families may have to file taxes separately). This is an easy way to identify actual farmers. Just add to the future EO “Federal employees who file a Schedule F or have spouses that do are entitled to keep their existing remote or telework agreements.”
If I end up back in the office 100%, there definitely won’t be organic wheat coming from my farm next year.
My big-farmer neighbor will likely buy our land and it will get sprayed with things MAHA doesn’t like. Without remote work flexibilities for small farmer-bureaucrats, nobody wins. DOGE doesn’t get a resignation letter from me, MAHA gets fewer organic farms, and the country will lose more small farmers.
President Trump recently said: “A Trump administration will always put farmers and American workers first.” He should start with American government workers who are also farmers.
Image: Amy Smith, by permission