Vilsack on State of the Union

Vilsack on State of the Union. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Last week President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address and depending on what side of the aisle you sit on seems to dictate how you felt about it. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack was obviously pleased with the President’s comments.

VILSACK: Well Greg, I was very pleased with the President’s speech because of the emphasis that he placed on rural American and an acknowledgement of some of the key components of future success and how we’re going to win the future with a reliance on the strengths of rural America. I think that farmers and ranchers in this country have kind of given the country and the President sort of a roadmap to how we win this future.

The President spent a good deal of time talking about American innovation.

VILSACK: If you think about American agriculture and how it has embraced innovation and how much more productive it has become, when you look at the connections that American agriculture has with the land grant universities and the work that’s being done on a cooperative public/private partnership way and the infrastructure that’s being built to enable us to fully utilize our ag products both here domestically and in export markets, when you see all of that, you know the President was right to talk about out innovating, out educating and out building the rest of the world and agriculture’s doing that.

Another comment that I’m sure got plenty of farmer’s attention was the Presidents call to double exports.

VILSACK: It’s a great opportunity for us and I think the President understands and appreciates we’ve seen very significant increases, tremendous opportunities here for export. The American brand is strong in all products; specialty crops, staple crops, livestock, you name it we have an export market opportunity. With Korean Free Trade Agreement, with the focus on Columbia, Panama, with the Mexican truck deal that we’re trying to get resolved and opened there is nothing but good news ahead in terms of ag exports.

Speaking of the pending trade agreements, where are we on those. 

VILSACK: I think it’s important to get the Korean Free Trade Agreement through the process so that there is a commitment by this Congress to free trade, I think there will be and the Korean deal obviously is the largest of the three that are pending. That then provides momentum for completion of the Columbian and Panama agreement. Meanwhile USDA and the U.S. Trade Representatives office is working very hard to reduce barriers that exist to ag trade in other countries we’re currently doing business with.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.