Why Is It So Hard to Get a Farmers.Gov Account?

In tech, first impressions are everything. A frustrating onboarding process leads to dropoff and churn. The USDA’s farmer-facing platform, Farmers.Gov, offers farmers access to online accounts to get their farm records. In theory, this application is a game-changer for farmers, who would otherwise have to get in their truck and drive to the nearest USDA service center to access important farm records and forms. But in practice, the act of registering for a Farmers.Gov account is a more complicated process than the current solution of driving and in-person service. 

American producers expect a digital service option. While culturally farmers are portrayed as tech backward and skeptical of digitization, the reality is that many producers are already doing business online and operate their farm from several digital applications (for instance, a direct to consumer Angus beef producer may use Cattlemax for livestock tracking, FarmRaise for the back office, Etsy or Shopify for direct online sales, and Square for point of sale). With these apps, farmers can get set up and onboarded easily to ensure ongoing usage. 

So why is Farmers.Gov the holdout in a rapidly digitizing industry, especially when digital service has the potential to save the USDA billions of dollars? There are three major barriers that a farmer must surmount to get online access.  First, the farmer must register a “customer record” with the USDA. Despite being Step 1 in obtaining digital access, getting a customer record is impossible to do online. Instead, it requires filling out actual paperwork and submitting it in person at the local USDA service center. Only once a farmer has that record on file with the USDA can they then proceed to Step 2: Login.Gov registration.

Login.Gov registration requires a series of digital forms followed by two-step authentication. When our tech savvy team attempted to register an operation online and proceeded through these steps, we consistently received error messages. “Something Went Wrong” so many times that we were ultimately unable to register at all and proceed to Step 3: identify verification. Eventually, we just gave up.

There are three things that the USDA's IT team can do today to improve onboarding. First, they can build a digital path for customer record registration and merge that with the Login.Gov onboarding. Second, they can optimize the Login.Gov experience to minimize error messages that block registration, and third, empower farmers with an AI chatbot trained on common farmer registration questions that can provide helpful context and encourage the farmer all the way to the end. Once the farmer is registered, they will have direct access to the game-changing resources - both financial and educational - at their fingertips that can power their operation’s success.

The USDA has an incredible opportunity to meet farmers where they are: in the field, on the go, on their phones. Account onboarding that’s optimized for mobile use would significantly empower the farmer by saving them time, money, and stress. Serving the farmer this way can also generate billions in cost savings for the USDA through saved productivity, more accurate recordkeeping, and self-serve options. I suspect these value propositions were part of the original vision of Farmers.Gov. Today, the onboarding experience is so convoluted that it’s actually more stressful than burning fuel on a drive to the USDA service center. It does not have to be this way, and with the current Administration's focus on efficiency, we have a mandate to build a smoother, accessible, and functional digital onboarding so that producers can have an efficient and empowering USDA experience.