Hundreds of jobs will be axed at WA’s Department of Agriculture, with plans to cut the workforce in half in coming years.

The Barnett Government has been publicly spruiking its supposed commitment to agriculture as an economic priority for the state, including plans to double agricultural production by 2025.

But in the background, deep cuts are on the way for the people tasked with carrying out the Government’s bold claims.

Liberal Upper House backbencher Nigel Hallet said it was a “disgrace”.

“What you've got is a department with no direction,” he told reporters.

“Your staff have lost morale and you've got no funding, and we haven't heard a whimper on changing this.

“Agriculture is meant to be the next boom industry and here you are slashing and burning.”

Agriculture Minister Ken Baston said wanted the the department to review its operations, focusing in particular on its core functions.

“I want to know, what is the floor, what is the base,” he said.

“Because I think that's extremely important, what the state of Western Australia needs for agriculture development, bearing in mind that it's such an important and upcoming export industry for Western Australia.

Department of Agriculture and Food WA director general Rob Delane said staff numbers would be cut from 950 to 700 in the next two years.

“We do expect to need to reduce the department's staffing further over the coming years. We're very focused on the next two financial years,” he said.

The job losses will not stop there though, with Mr Delane indicating that the department will “have 500 less FTEs [full-time employees] over a period, a reduction over less than 10 years”.

“There's a lot of things that we used to do that we don't do any more,” he said.

“Clearly, we've got morale challenges... [it's a] very uncertain time for our staff but they very proudly get on with their work and we think the sector ought be pretty proud of what they do.”

When the dust settles, Mr Delane says the massively reduced department would focus on its core obligations like biosecurity.

It will also fulfil priorities of the government of the day, like Royalties for Regions projects, and contracts in areas like research and development.