USDA Ranked Among Best Places to Work in Federal Government

Dec 08, 2017

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been rated by employees as among the top ten best places to work in the federal government, moving up two notches to come in at seventh place in the 2017 rankings. That is an improvement over 2016’s rankings, when USDA came in tied for ninth place. The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings are produced by the Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte and include opinions from more than 498,000 civil servants from 200 federal organizations on a wide range of workplace topics.

The rankings come from a complex algorithm that weighs responses to questions spanning from “is my organization a good place to work?” to “how satisfied are you with your job?” These measures are widely considered the most comprehensive rating of employee engagement in the federal government.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue issued the following statement:

“Our high-quality USDA employees work hard every day to provide the best possible services to our customers: the farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers of American agriculture. It’s our shared goal to be the most effective, most efficient, most customer-focused department in the entire federal government. And this year’s rankings show that USDA is also a great place to work and is improving every day. It is an honor to work alongside such dedicated professionals who make coming to work such a pleasure.”

Source: USDA

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.