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Economy

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USDA Chief: Rural America Becoming Less Relevant

December 8th, 2012 1:23 pm Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has some harsh words for rural America: It’s “becoming less and less relevant,” he says.

A month after an election that Democrats won even as rural parts of the country voted overwhelmingly Republican, the former Democratic governor of Iowa told farm belt leaders this past week that he’s frustrated with their internecine squabbles and says they need to be more strategic in picking their political fights.

“It’s time for us to have an adult conversation with folks in rural America,” Vilsack said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the Farm Journal. “It’s time for a different thought process here, in my view.”

He said rural America’s biggest assets — the food supply, recreational areas and energy, for example — can be overlooked by people elsewhere as the U.S. population shifts more to cities, their suburbs and exurbs.

“Why is it that we don’t have a farm bill?” Vilsack said. “It isn’t just the differences of policy. It’s the fact that rural America with a shrinking population is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we had better recognize that and we better begin to reverse it.”

For the first time in recent memory, farm-state lawmakers were not able to push a farm bill through Congress in an election year, evidence of lost clout in farm states.

The Agriculture Department says about 50 percent of rural counties have lost population in the past four years and poverty rates are higher there than in metropolitan areas, despite the booming agricultural economy.

Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks found that rural voters accounted for just 14 percent of the turnout in last month’s election, with 61 percent of them supporting Republican Mitt Romney and 37 percent backing President Barack Obama. Two-thirds of those rural voters said the government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.

Vilsack criticized farmers who have embraced wedge issues such as regulation, citing the uproar over the idea that the Environmental Protection Agency was going to start regulating farm dust after the Obama administration said repeatedly it had no so such intention.

In his Washington speech, he also cited criticism of a proposed Labor Department regulation, later dropped, that was intended to keep younger children away from the most dangerous farm jobs, and criticism of egg producers for dealing with the Humane Society on increasing the space that hens have in their coops. Livestock producers fearing they will be the next target of animal rights advocates have tried to undo that agreement.

“We need a proactive message, not a reactive message,” Vilsack said. “How are you going to encourage young people to want to be involved in rural America or farming if you don’t have a proactive message? Because you are competing against the world now.”

John Weber, a pork producer in Dysart, Iowa, said Friday that farmers have to defend their industries against policies they see as unfair. He said there is great concern among pork producers that animal welfare groups are using unfair tactics and may hurt their business.

“Our role is to defend our producers and our industry in what we feel are issues important to us,” he said.

Weber agreed, though, that rural America is declining in influence. He said he is concerned that there are not enough lawmakers from rural areas and complained that Congress doesn’t understand farm issues. He added that the farm industry needs to communicate better with consumers.

“There’s a huge communication gap” between farmers and the food-eating public, he said.

Vilsack, who has made the revitalization of rural America a priority, encouraged farmers to embrace new kinds of markets, work to promote global exports and replace a “preservation mindset with a growth mindset.” He said they also need to embrace diversity because it is an issue important to young people who are leaving rural areas.

“We’ve got something to market here,” he said. “We’ve got something to be proactive about. Let’s spend our time and our resources and our energy doing that and I think if we do we’re going to have a lot of young people who want to be part of that future.”

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AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick



  • Michael Kollmorgen

    Most of Rural American now is comprised of Agra-Businesses that plant thousands of acres of crops. Your solely-owned local small farms are nearly gone. Most of what you do see is farmers “leasing” a farm from someone else who owns a lot more land somewhere else.

    So, why pass any farm bill that supports these mega-farms so they don’t have to plant crops and boost their profits.

    These farm bills don’t support our small farms whatsoever.

  • amarquez647

    I remember my grandfather’s farm and he on horseback supervising his workers or surveying his fields. Thirty years later, I saw my uncle dawning a chemical hazard suit to safeguard himself as he sprayed pesticide. Today my cousins farm as a hobby, not for a living. It is no longer profitable to farm small farms. The small farms that needed laws and subsidies to help when nature would not cooperate are very few. The mega farms have forced most small farmers to retire or grow.
    Monsanto and other similar companies have monopolized seeds, fertilizers, and insecticides. Monsanto can sue if Monsanto seeds contaminate your crop. They can make the farmer pay them for using their own seeds because they have jeans that Monsanto has patented. Congress and the courts can bring equity and protect the independent farmer.
    Husbandry, done at an industrial scale, is like an animal factory. In addition, not enough is being done to safeguard the water resources. My parents at one time raised free-range chickens. In industrial farming, the space allowed the animals is very small, their exercise is limited, and hormones used to maximize yield. A lot of the animal farming is inhumane and it does not have to be.
    The rural population has decreased because farming has become a corporate endeavor. The families and individual are no longer important. The emphasis has shifted to the bottom line, the stockholders and the commodities market. It is corporate greed without corporate ethics.