Vilsack Promotes Importance of Rural America

Vilsack Promotes the Importance of Rural America

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

Last week at the American Farm Bureau’s annual meeting, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack shared that although agriculture has been the second leading money maker for the country’s economy, rural America is losing influence in Washington, D.C.

Vilsack: “In the last census, 1130 rural counties in America --over 50 percent of the rural counties -- lost population. Fewer people, ultimately reflects itself in fewer people in Congress, in state legislatures who understand and appreciate the challenges and opportunities in rural America.

Vilsack says rural America needs to strengthen its political clout despite that dwindling rural population by becoming the place to solve many of our nation’s problems, like reliance on foreign oil and eradicating hunger.

Vilsack: “We can inspire young people, we can encourage young people; we can create opportunities for young people, not just on the farm, but in small towns all across this great country. We can bring people back. We can keep people. And in doing so we can create a message and a powerful message of the importance that rural America plays in the lives of every single American and then it becomes a little easier to explain to members of Congress from urban and suburban areas why a five-year bill is necessary and it becomes impossible for political leadership to stop its passage, because too many people want it, too many people need it and everybody understands the importance of it.”