KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Agriculture Department employees and bargaining units will be advised next week of plans for furloughing employees in the various divisions of USDA, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters here today after a speech to corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum farmers gathered for the Commodity Classic.

In comments on the program aspects of the sequester, Vilsack said the impact of the $1 billion to $1.5 billion cut over six to seven months will not be felt all at once.

“It will be an evolution and “over time you will see the impact,” he added.

On specific programs, Vilsack said:

• Crop insurance indemnities will be exempt, along with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, better known as food stamps) and the multiyear Conservation Reserve Program.
• Direct payments that farmers get whether prices are high or low will probably be trimmed, but the payments will be made to all farmers whether or not they have completed the signup by midnight tonight when the sequester goes into effect. “We are going to be as equitable as we can be. Similarly situated folks will be treated similarly,” Vilsack said. If Congress cuts direct payments, they are likely to cut future years, he added.
• Research will be cut by $60 million and within a week or two universities that are scheduled to receive awards or grants will be notified that those payments will be smaller.
• The supplemental nutrition assistance program for women, infants and children known as WIC will provide benefits to qualified applicants until the program runs out of money for new applicants. Then those applicants will be notified they will be placed on a waiting list. The WIC cut could affect as many as 600,000 women and infants, he said.
• The Farm Service Agency will have $34 million to $35 million less for farm loans.
• The Natural Resources Conservation Service will have to tell 2,600 farmers that the agency does not have the resources to write a conservation plan for them, and tell 12,000 farmers that they agency does not have the money to fund their plans.
• The Foreign Agricultural Service will have fewer dollars for trade promotion. “Lord knows what it will do to our competitors and their ability to go into foreign markets and say perhaps the U.S is not as certain as it once was,” Vilsack said.
• Rural housing programs “will be hit hard,” Vilsack said, explaining that 10,000 rural people who get rental assistance will lose that aid. He added that he doesn’t know what it means for them and the people who own the buildings. Hundreds of rural people won’t get housing loans, he said.

Vilsack said he has great sympathy for USDA employees because they have to deal with both the sequester and the possibility of a government shutdown if Congress does not pass a bill to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2013 by March 27.

“This has been a very difficult time for those who work at USDA,” Vilsack said in his speech to the farmers.

USDA employees, he noted, have not had a pay increase for three years and have seen their numbers decrease by 6,500 workers during the same period, while the agency’s operating budget after sequestration will be less than it was in fiscal year 2009.

“It is a workforce that is dedicated to you,” he said.