United States Department of Agriculture

About NASS

Director, Western Field Operations

Troy Joshua

Troy Joshua is the director of Western Field Operations of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). In this capacity, he oversees budget, personnel activities, and program implementation for six regional field offices covering 22 states. He has more than 25 years of experience with NASS.

Before being appointed to his current position, he served as the chief of staff with responsibility for strategy and formulating budgets while enhancing the agency’s relationship with legislative affairs. From 2012 until 2018, Joshua served as chief of the Environmental, Economics and Demographics Branch. He led the agency’s efforts to produce and release data on number of farms, land in farms, labor, economics, computer usage, chemical-use on the farm, producers’ demographics, and the Current Agricultural Industrial Reports covering the amount of crops used to produce ethanol and coproducts, flour, and fats and oils. Joshua also served on the North American Tripartite Committee on Agricultural Statistics.

In 2011, Joshua was the special assistant to the deputy administrator for Field Operations, overseeing the agency’s 24 northeastern and southeastern field offices including Puerto Rico. In 2005, he served as director of the agency’s New Jersey Field Office. He has also worked as the national cotton statistician and agricultural statistician in the California and Mississippi field offices.

Joshua was born in St. James, Louisiana. He has a master’s degree in agriculture economics from Washington State University and a bachelor’s degree in agriculture business from Southern University.