The second highest ranking official at the US Department of Agriculture and the first Black woman to serve in the position is stepping down after two years at the post.
Since 2021, Jewel Bronaugh led the department’s efforts in diversifying its workforce and assisting farmers of color who say they have faced discrimination.
Bronaugh made the announcement in January and said she was leaving to focus more on her family. Xochitl Torres Small, the under secretary for rural development, has been nominated to take her place.
The Virginia native played a key role in rectifying issues of bias and discrimination among American farmers and co-chaired an independent commission that examined inequities within the department. She also helped lead the department, which consists of 29 agencies and employs over 100,000 people across the nation.
“I understood as a Black woman, coming into the role as deputy secretary, the weight that went with that,” Bronaugh told CNN. “The responsibility that went with that. The people who for years have not been able to get resources from USDA. The history that that has had on farmers and landowners and people who live in rural communities, I knew that I had a responsibility.”
She continued: “I knew coming in that there was a lot of work to be done and I was going to have to be real to that commitment, not only to everyone that USDA serves but specifically as a voice for people who have felt like they had not had a voice that represented in their interactions with the USDA. It was my responsibility to carry that.”
Bronaugh was born and raised in Petersburg, Virginia and was awarded a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University. She then earned a master’s degree and doctorate in vocational education from Virginia Tech before accepting a role as an extension specialist at Virginia State University. She would later become the dean of the university’s College of Agriculture.
In 2018, she was appointed commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, becoming the first Black woman in the role. In 2021, she was nominated and appointed to her current role.
“The fact that she is the first Black woman to hold the position means a lot to us. It gives us hope for the future,” Shirley Sherrod, who was the USDA’s director of rural development in Georgia, told CNN. “When you look at the US Department of Agriculture and you look at all of the actions we have suffered as Black people trying to get the programs that should have been available to everyone, to access them and feel that they were being implemented fairly — to actually have someone in the second position … really helping to oversee that and have a voice in places we don’t normally get a chance to be in, just to me meant a lot.”
Before she leaves her role at USDA, she plans to release the Equity Commission’s interim report, which she says will hopefully help the department address inequities and issues of discrimination.
“Being able to get the Equity Commission to a set of interim recommendations has been huge for me,” Bronaugh said. “That is going to give us an opportunity to look at, you know, where we have discretion, where we have authority and where we have resources to immediately start to address some of the historical inequity issues here are USDA.”
