Wichita ? Kansas Farm Service Agency, which handles federal crop payments to farmers, announced plans Thursday to consolidate 11 Kansas offices as it struggles with a declining budget and shrinking staff.

The announcement of the targeted offices comes after nearly a year of meetings across Kansas and the recommendation of a review committee. Kansas has 103 FSA offices that were established in the 1930s and 1940s. Of those, 32 were shared-manager offices.

“Like a lot of other entities, we cannot afford the tradition of having all those offices out there,” said Bill Fuller, the agency’s state executive director. “We have to focus our people and our resources where the workload is.”

Slated for closure are offices in Chase, Comanche, Johnson, Geary, Elk, Woodson, Barber, Morton, Wabaunsee, Leavenworth and Gove counties. Those offices will be consolidated with FSA offices in neighboring counties.

The agency projected it would save $242,000 in rent plus $46,520 in utilities and other costs by consolidating those offices.

Kansas Farm Bureau President Steve Baccus, a grain producer from Ottawa County, said in a statement that he was disappointed the 11 FSA offices will close.

Baccus criticized the Department of Agriculture for not coming up with a broad management plan using current technology that would minimize the effect on farmers.

“No one feels the impact of declining rural populations more than the farm and ranch families who have made the conscious decision to stay here and earn our living,” Baccus said. “Fewer people in rural areas means our government will be forced to make tough decisions about how best to allocate limited resources.”

In 2005, the Farm Service Agency shelved plans to close one-third of its 2,346 county offices nationwide after a groundswell of opposition from lawmakers and farmers. In Kansas, that would have meant the closure of 29 FSA offices.

Fuller said he went to the federal agency and proposed states develop their own consolidation proposals rather than have the national office dictate closings to the states as it had in previous consolidation efforts.

“I am very satisfied because I am the one that initiated it,” Fuller said of this plan. “What I think is great is for Kansans to have the opportunity to decide what is best for Kansas. : This is a reflection that we better know in Kansas what needs to be done, and it is a more modest plan than the national plan.”

The criteria for consolidation included staffing, budget, workload, population, trade centers and demographics, among other things, Fuller said.