The District will lose two key research subagencies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that employ hundreds — and they’re not simply moving within Greater Washington.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue on Friday said bids from Indiana, the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina and the Kansas City region are the three finalists for the agency’s Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. St. Louis and Madison, Wisconsin, are two alternative locations should the top three finalists not suit USDA’s needs.
“This short list of locations took into consideration critical factors required to uphold the important missions of ERS and NIFA. We also considered factors important to our employees, such as quality of life,” Perdue said in a news release. “Relocation will help ensure USDA is the most effective, most efficient, and most customer-focused agency in the federal government, allowing us to be closer to our stakeholders and move our resources closer to our customers.”
It’s possible the two subagencies would be co-located.
Bids from the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp. and the University of Maryland-College Park made the first cut in March. The central Virginia counties of Greene, Madison and Caroline were also in the running, as were the cities of Charlottesville, Richmond, Petersburg and Roanoke.