The next congressional session will host a divided government – Democrats holding a majority in the House and Senate, and Republicans leading the executive branch. What does that mean for farm policy? Former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the discussion should focus on strengthening opportunities for farmers.
“It’s the other 90 percent and there are about 10 percent, 10 to 15 percent of farms that are in that category of commercial size operations. It’s another 85 to 90 percent of farms that I’m really concerned about because we’ve lost too many of them. And speaking of national security, when you lose those farm families, you lose the contribution that they make to not just to food security but to their community. And many of them ultimately have to leave that community and I think it erodes an important value system in rural places.”
Vilsack says meeting that challenge will require a broader approach to profitability. He wants to see producers have opportunities to differentiate their operations and capture value in the marketplace.
“If you think of the restaurant business as an example, as a comparison, you’ve got Michelin star restaurants at the top, very expensive, and then you’ve got McDonald’s, if you will. But you have a whole series of value propositions in between. You’ve got the Applebee’s and the Perkins and your locally owned restaurants that create value propositions. So as a consumer, you have multiple choices. And as an operator, you have multiple ways that you can potentially be profitable. That doesn’t exist in farming, but it needs to.”
He points to innovation, market development, and new revenue opportunities as key pieces of a policy framework to benefit farm families
“It ought not to be that in the farming business, that in order that 90% of farm families have to work off the farm to be able to do the one job that they want to do, which is to farm. I don’t know if too many other businesses or professions or industries where you have to work multiple jobs to do the one job you want to do. And it seems to me that as a country in this opportunity of a divided government, maybe this is the time for ag committee members to come together and say, we’ve done a lot for the commercial scale operators and God bless them. But now maybe we need to focus our attention and expand our view of this to the other 90% who struggle every single year, even in the best years.”
Vilsack says the coming years are a chance for lawmakers to revisit how federal farm policy supports agriculture and rural communities.