Merrigan on Know Your Farmer- Know Your Food

Merrigan on Know Your Farmer- Know Your Food

Merrigan on Know Your Farmer- Know Your Food. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

USDA Deputy Ag Secretary Kathleen Merrigan spent some time in the northwest last week to talk about highlights of USDA's 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food' initiative which promotes local and regional food systems by stimulating community economic development and ensuring equitable access to affordable fresh and local food. The program is seeing some success with help from businesses like the Northwest Agriculture Business Center.

MERRIGAN: Some of it is just individual farmers that have an idea, a dream and they’re just determined and they might be taking advantage of USDA programs like the value added producer grant program. I met some that did that but it is also organizations like the Northwest Ag Business Center that they have staff, they can get the money and they can help develop networks of farmers that really get to an institutional side that can really have some claim on the market.

Merrigan talks about her visit.

MERRIGAN: I saw a lot of unique products and a lot of pride in these unique products. I saw really very robust partnerships. So I was at a senior center, a beautiful of the Sound and elderly who are low income coming in for a meal. There sitting at the table is the farmer who brought in food to feed the seniors. The Northwest Ag Business Center was there trying to make all the business connections, other farmers in the network ready to bring their produce into the senior center, the Mayor of Seattle speaking about the importance of local and regional foods.

She talks about how USDA views the farming community.

MERRIGAN: We’re a country where the average age of farmers is 57. We’ve got a whole lot of farmers that are over the age 70 who are farming. We know we need to repopulate our working lands. I’m for big farmers, medium sized farmers and small farmers, I’m for farmers and so is my boss, Sec. Vilsack. So we’re working on expanding export opportunities. We had a record breaking export year last year. We’re on course to have another record breaker this year and I’m working really hard for the smallest farmers.

Finally she has a comment for the general public.

MERRIGAN: What the general public needs to understand is our investment in farms and working lands is a public benefit that they get because it means cleaner water, it means cleaner air. Environmentalists and farmers, their the same guy.

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

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