Sonny Perdue Looks Back Pt 2
I’m Bob Larson. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue will be stepping aside in the next couple of months when the new Administration moves in, and now he’s looking back on an incredibly challenging four years.
Perdue says one huge issue the USDA has taken on for Rural Americans in our rapidly changing high-tech world, is having access to broadband connectivity in hard to reach areas …
PERDUE … “It’s vital! I mean it’s no longer a luxury. When we began, President Trump, the day after I was sworn in, signed the executive order on Rural Prosperity and as we’ve studied that for 180 days with an interagency, about 22 different federal agencies, connectivity was one of the main things that we came up with that could really help rural America including farms and farmsteads.”
And in today’s world, Perdue says too many are left disconnected …
PERDUE … “It’s no longer acceptable for 20% of the nation here to be cut out of connectivity of electronic commerce. That’s just not acceptable.”
And, Perdue says if we’ve been paying attention this year …
PERDUE … “COVID has shown us that with distance learning, what are the country kids going to do when school’s not in? How are they going to learn if they can’t be connected, tele-health, those kinds of issues?”
Tune in tomorrow for more on the challenges of Sonny Perdue’s tenure as Secretary of Agriculture.
