Secretary Rollins Announces the Creation of the USDA Office of Seafood

Apr 16, 2026

Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins alongside U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, and Maine Senator Susan Collins announced the creation of the new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of Seafood. This first of its kind office will prioritize customer service and ease of navigation for American seafood cultivators, producers, and processors to access USDA programs.

“President Trump is the first President to recognize fisherman for the essential work they do to sustain our food supply,” said Secretary Rollins. “With the launch of the USDA Office of Seafood, we are honoring decades of hard work on the water and opening the door to new opportunities, stronger support, and a brighter future for the seafood industry. Today’s announcement, in addition to the historic tax cuts and investments in rural America made possible through the priorities and provisions in the Working Families Tax Cuts, is truly a new chapter for America’s fishermen.”

“The Department of the Interior is thrilled to support the establishment of the first-ever Seafood Office at the Department of Agriculture - an initiative that puts the people who help feed America first,” said Secretary Burgum. “American fishermen are the backbone of coastal economies and a vital part of our nation’s food security. By improving coordination across agencies, the Seafood Office will ensure these fishermen can fully access the tools and programs they need to thrive.”

“The Trump Administration is committed to supporting American fishermen, strengthening our coastal communities, and ensuring families have access to affordable high-quality American seafood,” said Secretary Lutnick. “When our fishermen win, America wins.”

“Fishing is the very foundation of Maine’s heritage. Today, the seafood industry in our region generates more than $5 billion in income and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, in addition to providing a nutritious food supply, delicious restaurant meals, and sustaining entire coastal communities,” said Senator Collins. “I appreciate that USDA is recognizing our fishermen as farmers of the sea and establishing the Office of Seafood. The creation of this office is a long overdue, essential step to expanding seats at the table for our hardworking fishing families, who are a key piece of our nation’s history and our future as well.”

“Alaska’s fishermen deserve the same federal attention, resources, and risk management tools afforded to America’s incredible farmers,” said Senator Sullivan. “The new USDA Office of Seafood—an action I’ve been strongly advocating for over the past decade—opens the door to that opportunity. This office is going to benefit everybody: all of Alaska’s fishermen, our small businesses, and our many coastal and Interior communities from across the state. I thank Secretary Rollins and Secretary Lutnick for working closely with me and my team over the past year to fully understand the challenges facing our fishermen and coastal communities and for taking meaningful action on their behalf. With this new office, we’re going to build a stronger partnership between USDA, Department of Commerce, the entire Executive Branch, and our fishermen, so they can continue to do what they do best: sustainably harvesting the freshest and healthiest wild seafood in the world.”

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”