An open letter to President Donald Trump January 17, 2017
Mr. Trump, please let me begin by saying how excited
those of us are who proudly call Rural America home. We want to say Thank
You. You stood tall for the very values and principles the founding fathers put
forth in the Constitution of the United States of America. All we have ever asked
for is power for “we the people” and the “pursuit of happiness” which our
forefathers envisioned.
With that said, I feel I represent the lion’s share of
farmers and ranchers in this great nation who ask for your deep consideration
in naming your final cabinet position, that of Secretary of Agriculture.
As Abraham Lincoln stated on May 15, 1862, the USDA
shall be referred to as “The People’s Department.” And for this very reason we
feel very strongly that it should be run by a real person of the land – to be
specific: A Farmer.
The farmers of today are survivors. They have
weathered challenges not only from Mother Nature but more severely from the
Federal Government. The farmer develops a plan but understands the need to
adapt to any storm and figures out a solution regardless of the obstacles.
I see the political arena sharing parallels to these
challenges. The Secretary of Agriculture undoubtedly will need to be someone who
has experienced adversity, learned from it and become stronger and wiser in weathering political storms.
The farmer of today has learned to judiciously implement
the latest and greatest in technology. No longer can we rely on back breaking
work and high labor inputs. We must run an efficient operation with each person
on the team pulling their full weight and balancing many roles.
I see the same requirements for the crew chief at the
USDA. The USDA currently employs 105,778 people making it the largest agency in
the Federal Government. That number is tremendously troubling when a report
from the Farm Foundation Organization states that only 76,000 farm families
produce 80% of the food in this country.
As well as knowing agriculture, the farmer of today
must be well versed in health and nutrition. With millions of acres of land
planted to crops of all types, they only flourish if the organic matter of the
soil is at a healthy level. The farmer must feed an ideal diet to each of the 9
billion animals they produce each year in order for them to maintain high
health and efficient growth in order to be competitive in the market place.
The head chef, also known as the Secretary of
Agriculture, must oversee a food guide pyramid that all institutions in the
United States will follow. I must say, Sir, if the farmer fed his livestock or
plants like the USDA feeds our nation’s youth, seniors or military, he would be
broke. The nutrition guidelines put forth do not come close to the proven
scientific recommendations available for healthy living today.
The farmers of today have moved away from a reliance
upon a government subsidy and more on the basic principle of supply and demand
for sustainability. We have accomplished great things through our work ethic
and the knowledge gleaned from the USDA-driven Land Grant institutions so that
we may produce more with less.
Meanwhile, we know that 80% of the Farm Bill goes to
SNAP and only 15% is actually paid to farmers in the form of a safety net for
domestic food production. It would appear to me that the farmer would be the
perfect person to run the USDA and implement this reduced reliance strategy for
the nation as a whole. This would go a long way in decreasing the 94 million
Americans that currently draw some form of government assistance.
While I could go on for quite some time with a logical
list of reasons that an actual farmer should be the Secretary of Agriculture,
this one statement summarizes it best.
When Abraham Lincoln created the USDA it took in
excess of 5 acres of land to produce enough food to feed one person for a
single year. As you begin your term in 2017, it will require less than 1/3 of an
acre for the farmer to produce the same supply of food for one person for one year.
While it is widely known in Rural America that “God
made a farmer” to tend to his creation, we ask and even pray that you
understand the importance of that statement and give serious consideration to
continuing the great thing that God started.
Trent
Loos
Loup
City, Nebraska
6th
United States Farmer
Member
Trump Agricultural Advisory Committee
