FSA's County Committee Candidate Nomination Underway

The 2026 edition of USDA's Farm Service Agency County Committee elections is now underway, with candidate nominations being accepted.

“The last date to file a nomination form is August the 3rd,” said Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation Richard Fordyce.

“You can nominate yourself. You can nominate someone else. You have to participate or cooperate in a program administered by FSA,” Fordyce added. “You have to be eligible as a voter to actually be a candidate for the state committee. And you must reside in what we refer to as the local administrative area.”

County committees in rural and suburban areas usually consist of between 3 to 11 members who serve three-year terms. Committee members are involved in FSA local office decisions, such as disaster recovery delivery, conservation offerings, commodity and price support programs, and other ag issues in their local administrative area.

“Once those nominations are in and closed, we will start to develop ballots, and those ballots will be mailed to eligible voters,” Fordyce said. “And an eligible voter is anyone who's done a program or filed an acreage report or something like that with FSA, and those ballots will be mailed out in early November. And then once you receive a ballot as a voter, you have until December 7th to get that ballot back into the local USDA service center. Those ballots will be counted. The winner will be determined, and then those newly elected county committee members will be seated on January 1st of 2027.”

More details about FSA county committees and this year's election cycle are available at local USDA service centers and on the FSA's Website.