Adopt a narrower, agriculture-focused USDA mission statement

Not started

Printed page 291 10. Department of Agriculture

“Taking these factors into account, below is a model USDA mission statement: To develop and disseminate agricultural information and research, identify and address concrete public health and safety threats directly connected to food and agriculture, and remove both unjustified foreign trade barriers for U.S. goods and domestic government barriers that undermine access to safe and affordable food absent a compelling need—all based on the importance of sound science, personal freedom, private property, the rule of law, and service to all Americans.”

What has happened

Sep 3, 2026 Not started
The mission statement is unchanged, and it can now be quoted rather than inferred. USDA's own page at `about-usda/general-information/our-agency`, read on 2026-09-03, still carries both texts verbatim. What We Do: "We provide leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on public policy, the best available science, and effective management." Our Vision: "We have a vision to provide economic opportunity through innovation, helping rural America to thrive; to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans while also helping feed others throughout the world; and to preserve our Nation's natural resources through conservation, restored forests, improved watersheds, and healthy private working lands." Both are the long-standing pre-window texts, and both retain every element the Mandate's model statement drops — rural development, nutrition, natural resources, conservation, forests, watersheds. USDA's own sitemap (1,554 URLs, fetched the same day) contains no 2025 or 2026 strategic-plan page adopting a narrower mission. Secretary Rollins's "Farmers First" and "Ranchers First" framings, still running through press releases of 2026-08-31 and 2026-09-01, are priorities announcements and do not amend the mission statement. No strategic plan or Federal Register notice adopts one.
- USDA, About USDA — Our Agency: the department's mission and vision statements, unchanged (as observed 2026-09-03 — the page carries no date of its own, so it is dated at the observation and is approximate)
  Primary Executive branch Sep 3, 2026
- USDA release 0091.25: In the First 100 Days of the Trump Administration, Secretary Rollins Puts Farmers First
  Primary Executive branch Apr 30, 2025

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Corrected on 2026-09-03: usda.gov can be read. It opens to a request that looks in every respect like a desktop browser’s; a request that only names a browser is refused, which is why an earlier search recorded the site as closed. Every page named here opened, the sitemap included.
usda.gov’s site search does not work. “transforming”, “commodity” and the nonsense control “zzqxwrflub” all return near-identical 174 KB pages with no result list, so any search there would look like a negative. USDA’s sitemap (usda.gov/sitemap.xml, eight pages, 1,554 URLs) is the substitute and is better.
USDA release 0094.25 (2025-05-01) is the closest thing to a restatement of purpose: it says USDA is being reoriented to “put American farmers first” and away from DEI and climate programs. It does not amend the mission statement.

Action: other
Object: USDA mission statement
ID: 755