FSA office in Helene-impacted area of N.C. slated to lose lease

HENDERSONVILLE, North Carolina — Even as farmers here recover from record flooding sustained during Tropical Storm Helene, the Trump administration has indicated it will terminate the lease of the Farm Service Agency office located in the heart of Western North Carolina’s apple orchards and fruit farms in Henderson County.

The termination of the lease in Hendersonville will affect both the FSA and the Henderson County Soil and Conservation offices. Helene caused an estimated $4.9 billion in damages to Western North Carolina agriculture, and an estimated $135 million in damages in Henderson County, the Hendersonville Times News reported Feb. 26.

The termination stems from the mass purge of the federal workforce led by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk under the direction of President Donald Trump. The cuts have slowly turned to terminating federal office leases under the General Services Administration. 

In total, 748 offices have seen lease terminations, according to the DOGE “wall of receipts.” The agency is self reporting the savings it has generated, but has occasionally reported incorrect information regarding the size of cut contracts. The largest discrepancy was in February when DOGE reported that it had canceled an $8 billion contract, when the actual contract was only worth $8 million, USA Today reported.

In North Carolina, 20 offices stand to be affected by lease terminations from DOGE, including Social Security Administration offices in Franklin and Roanoke Rapids. Hendersonville, home to some of the country’s most favored apple orchards, is set to lose it’s current FSA office. The FSA operates through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Henderson County Extension Director for NC Cooperative Extension Terry Kelley said he was “very concerned” about possible cuts to the FSA, given that most of the aid given to farmers after Helene has been through the agency. Most of the money allocated for farm recovery from Congress is still waiting to be distributed and the “most logical” way to distribute would be through the FSA, Kelley said.

“I’m very much afraid that if something doesn’t happen to get a little bit more to our growers that a lot of them are going to be left in bad shape,” Kelley said. The hope is that the FSA would have a new building by the end of August, Kelley said.

According to the DOGE website, the office in Hendersonville is a 5,358-square-foot building that had an annual lease cost of $111,756. The building owner, Greg Albea, said that his family received an email the week of Feb. 24 that the lease would end August 31.

The “full service” lease had been through the General Services Administration and required Albea’s company to pay for janitorial services, electricity, water, replace carpets and repaint the building, among other things. While the cost of the building is expensive on it’s face, the additional services meant they heavily reinvested monthly rent into the property, Albea said.

“We were hoping they would rethink things and decide it was not the worst option for them to stay,” Albea said, noting that traffic had increased to the FSA offices since Helene. A USDA spokesperson did not respond to a Citizen Times request for comment.

Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards defended DOGE’s actions as being “prudent to make sure that we are using Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars efficiently and effectively.” The Hendersonville FSA office may move to another location, he said, suggesting the cut was coming before DOGE posted the lease termination on its website.

“My office is aware of conversations to transition the Farm Service Agency office in Hendersonville to a new location that predated the current administration,” Edwards told the Citizen Times. “I have been in contact with the USDA and received assurances that the FSA office in Hendersonville will remain fully operational until the end of August and negotiations are currently underway to ensure continued access to FSA staff for the greatest number of farmers.”

Much of the $31 billion allocated to agricultural relief in a December bill passed by Congress has yet to come to WNC farms, Kelley said. The impact that cuts could have on relief through the FSA is something his team talks about “every day.”

The FSA provides relief through programs like the Tree Assistance Program, which helps farmers replace lost crops, and the Emergency Conservation Program that helps farmers and ranchers rehabilitate damaged land, which Kelley described as “very important” to addressing impacts from Helene.

Reporting by Will Hofmann, Asheville Citizen Times