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Open Recommendations (91 total)

Federal Property: Improved Monitoring, Oversight, and Data Would Help Understand Effects of Providing Property to Non-Federal Recipients

GAO-20-101
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Office of Property and Fleet Management to consistently monitor property provided to non-federal recipients within 1 year of receipt, and to ensure property is being used for its intended purpose 1 year after initial monitoring. (Recommendation 1)
Open
As of March 2024, we requested an updated from USDA regarding the status of its efforts to implement this recommendation. When USDA responds to our request, we will update the status of this recommendation accordingly.
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Office of Property and Fleet Management to establish clear processes to oversee property programs, including excess property provided to non-federal recipients across the agency. (Recommendation 4)
Open
As of March 2024, we are in coordination with the Office of Inspector General to obtain an update from USDA regarding the status of its efforts to implement this recommendation. We are awaiting a response and will update the status of this recommendation accordingly.

Thrifty Food Plan: Better Planning and Accountability Could Help Ensure Quality of Future Reevaluations

GAO-23-105450
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2 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture
Priority Rec.
The Secretary of Agriculture should establish specific quality assurance guidelines for TFP reevaluations that will ensure methodological decisions meet key quality standards for an analysis that will affect public policy and inform policy makers. These guidelines should summarize applicable USDA and other federal quality standards and should describe how such standards will be embedded in future TFPs. These guidelines should ensure that future TFP reports have:

  • clear rationales linked to the objective and scope of the analysis;
  • consideration of alternatives based in evidence, including important economic effects;
  • underlying analysis of economic effects associated with decisions; where important economic effects cannot be quantified, the analysis explains how they affect the comparison of alternatives;
  • transparent description of analytical choices, assumptions and data, including explanation of key limitations in the data and methods used; and
  • adequate documentation included in the analysis; the analysis should document that it complies with a robust quality assurance process.
    • (Recommendation 6)
Open
USDA did not explicitly agree or disagree with this recommendation. In February 2024, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) stated that the agency would follow the same quality assurance guidelines for the 2026 reevaluation as it did for the "Thrifty Food Plan Cost Estimates for Alaska and Hawaii" report. For example, the report included information on the objectives of the analyses, alternatives considered, and sensitivity analyses. In addition, FNS published an "Initial Study Plan: Thrifty Food Plan, 2026." This document outlines several quality assurance commitments for the 2026 reevaluation, such as publishing the initial and a final study plan and the project management plan on FNS's website; conducting the TFP reevaluation in alignment with USDA's Scientific Integrity Policy; following analytic best practices, collaboration with experts, and external peer review; and ensuring transparency by disclosing key information in the final TFP report. However, this initial study plan does not lay out specific quality assurance guidelines or controls, such as a checklist, to ensure the reevaluation team is aware of and held accountable for key quality assurance steps and standards. By contrast, as we noted in our report, USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) has published specific quality guidelines for its data products. For example, these standards state that all products are thoroughly reviewed by knowledgeable staff prior to dissemination to verify the accuracy and validity of the data, and that the procedures used to conduct this review must be documented and available upon request. ERS also has turned these guidelines into a checklist for product quality review. We will close this recommendation when USDA provides documentation of specific quality assurance standards that would apply to future TFP reevaluations.
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that FNS designs, documents, and implements key internal controls related to data processing, including standards and procedures for review of the computer code used in generating the TFP Market Baskets. (Recommendation 7)
Open
USDA did not explicitly agree or disagree with this recommendation. In June 2023, USDA stated that the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has designed, documented, and implemented expanded internal controls related to data processing, including review of the computer code. In December 2023, USDA stated that FNS implemented these controls and described them in the "Thrifty Food Plan Cost Estimates for Alaska and Hawaii" report, published in July 2023. Specifically, according to FNS, the calculations were performed independently by two economists and data management and analysis results were compared at each step. The economists worked collaboratively to identify and resolve any inconsistencies and confirmed their final analyses yielded consistent results. However, FNS has not provided documentation of these controls or confirmed they will be used in future Thrifty Food Plan reevaluations. We will close this recommendation when we receive this documentation.

Foreign Investments in U.S. Agricultural Land: Enhancing Efforts to Collect, Track, and Share Key Information Could Better Identify National Security Risks

GAO-24-106337
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Administrator of FSA, as FPAC-BC updates the AFIDA handbook, to clarify and provide specific instructions to headquarters and county employees for completing AFIDA responsibilities, including reviewing the accuracy of forms and identifying missing information. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

IT Modernization: USDA Needs to Improve Oversight of Farm Production and Conservation Mission Area

GAO-21-512
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) directs the Business Center Chief Operating Officer to have the FPAC mission area implement the key IT workforce planning activity of developing competency and staffing requirements. (Recommendation 5)
Open
In August 2023, agency officials noted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Workforce Steering Committee had updated the technical competencies for its IT workforce. Subsequently the FPAC Human Resources group used the updated competencies to develop a competency assessment process. However, agency officials stated that that the assessment process was put on hold. FPAC officials noted that in August 2023 they began the process of restarting the competency assessments. We will continue to review FPAC's progress in this area.

Climate Change: Options to Enhance the Resilience of Agricultural Producers and Reduce Federal Fiscal Exposure

GAO-23-104557
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture
Priority Rec.
The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Climate Change Program Office, located within the Office of the Chief Economist, analyzes the options to enhance the climate resilience of agricultural producers that were identified in this report and integrates them, as appropriate, into USDA's future climate resilience prioritization and planning efforts. Such analysis should include an explanation of USDA's decision to prioritize or not prioritize the options identified in this report and the identification of any additional authority and resources that USDA would need to implement the options. (Recommendation 1)
Open
USDA agreed with the recommendation. As of March 2024, USDA plans to address GAO's recommendation in the next cycle of Department-level climate adaptation planning. USDA received instructions to develop a 2024-2027 Climate Adaptation Plan from the White House Council on Environmental Quality at the end of September 2023 and is developing a new plan for release later in 2024. The new plan will include a detailed discussion of how USDA's programs and policies, decision-making, and funding processes are working to consider the effects of climate change on farmers, forest landowners, and rural communities. The plan will also include a stand-alone section that directly addresses the 13 options proposed in our report. USDA plans to address the extent to which it is already implementing some of the 13 options, or if not addressing an option directly, how it is otherwise addressing the need that an option aims to meet. The release of the USDA 2024-2027 Climate Adaptation Plan will be coordinated by the Council on Environmental Quality in late spring or early summer, at which point USDA will share the final product with GAO.

Justice40: Additional Efforts Needed to Improve Tribal Applicants' Access to Federal Programs Under Environmental Justice Initiative

GAO-24-106511
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of the USDA should ensure that program offices implementing Justice40 covered programs maintain records of related consultations with Tribes and consider—with tribal input—publicly sharing a high-level summary of consultation results, as appropriate, to improve tribal applicants' access to information about tribal input on federal programs and decrease the burden on Tribes and eligible Indigenous communities. (Recommendation 6)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

USDA Market Facilitation Program: Stronger Adherence to Quality Guidelines Would Improve Future Economic Analyses

GAO-22-468
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Office of the Chief Economist revises its internal review process to help ensure that USDA internal reviews of future economic analyses address the transparency of its documentation of the analyses. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In June 2022, and again in September 2023, USDA reiterated that it disagreed with our recommendations. USDA stated that the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) conducted the analysis in accordance with USDA Information Quality Guidelines and published the data sources, methodology, and assumptions underlying the analysis in two methodology reports posted to the OCE website and in the rulemaking Cost Benefit Analysis. However, OCE's published documentation did not transparently describe, to the extent possible, the 2019 MFP baseline methodology or OCE's selection of the elasticity values used in its economic model from among the available estimates, as USDA Information Quality Guidelines require. In February 2024, USDA OCE stated that it had not revised, and did not have plans to revise, its internal review process to ensure the documentation of its analysis is transparent since the publication of GAO's report in November 2021.

Sugar Program: Alternative Methods for Implementing Import Restrictions Could Increase Effectiveness

GAO-24-106144
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should evaluate the effectiveness of the WTO raw sugar tariff-rate quota allocation method versus other tariff-rate quota allocation methods to determine which would most effectively maintain an adequate sugar supply and minimizes costs to the government. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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