Feb 1, 2018

Perdue unveils Farmers.gov, a government ‘one-stop shop’

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today unveiled Farmers.gov, a grower-friendly, “one-stop shop” maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Purdue unveiled the website Thursday morning, Feb. 1, at a breakfast hosted by the Michigan Farm Bureau at Robinette’s Apple Haus, an orchard and market outside Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“We want to connect you to your USDA through a website called, specifically for you, Farmers.gov,” Perdue said at the meeting. “It’s for you, it’s a one-stop shop for you to go in there. We’re going to continue to grow Farmers.gov, where you can sit in those autonomous, GPS-driven combines and tractors while you’re scrolling across the web, and you can report your crops, you can connect, you can apply and do different things like that in an electronic format like that.”

Farmers.gov is mobile device-friendly and can identify for farmers the most convenient USDA office locations.

More features will be added over the coming months to allow agricultural producers to make appointments with USDA offices, file forms, and apply for USDA programs. Other items to be added include an interactive calendar, farming success stories, an online appointment feature, digital forms, and a business data dashboard. Additionally, when the 2018 Farm Bill is signed into law, there will be plain language program descriptions and a tool to determine eligibility.

“As I’ve traveled to 32 states in my first nine months as Secretary of Agriculture, I have consistently heard people express a desire for greater use of technology in the way we deliver programs at USDA,” Perdue said in a released statement. “It’s my goal to make USDA the most effective, most efficient, most customer-focused department in the entire federal government, and Farmers.gov is a big step in that direction.”

— Stephen Kloosterman, Assistant Editor

Above: Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue unveils Farmers.gov at a breakfast hosted by the Michigan Farm Bureau. Photos: Stephen Kloosterman