Over the weekend I had an opportunity to talk with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue while he was on his way to speak to farmers in Wisconsin. We talked about a few different things like how President Trump has helped out farmers, the Farmers to Families Food Box program, and farmer’s mental health. He explained why they chose to stop in Wisconsin, “The dairy part is a big part of agriculture. Dairy’s a big part of Wisconsin.” Sonny said that he wanted to hear from the farmers and see what issues they’re most concerned about so he can try and help them more.
He said that he thinks farmers would love if he could control the milk prices, but he joked that if he was in charge of prices, he’s not sure that we could afford it. Perdue went on to give an overview of what milk prices looked like this year and how much of a roller coaster the market is. That’s why he says that the safety nets are so important for dairies. One of those being the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). He’s positive that the program’s helping out because he hears success stories everywhere he goes. The program’s kept farms in business that otherwise might’ve had to shut down.
He wants people to realize how much President Trump has helped farmers in the United States. “Frankly, the kind of money that this President’s helped to get out into the ag community over the last three years has helped them survive and continue to be in farming,” Perdue went on to say, “we’ve actually seen farm income bottom in 2016 and continue to rise…our projections at USDA is that farm income for 2020 will actually be over the 20 year average from 2000 to 2019.”
Perdue gave some examples of how President Trump has helped out U.S. farmers. One of those examples being how he took on China and their unfair trade practices. China retaliated with tariffs that he considers to be unfair. That’s when President Trump asked Perdue to start a program that would keep farmers afloat during the retaliation, so that’s what he did. “This has been a tremendous inflow to the ag community that we’ve never seen before,” Perdue said. He talked about how farmers really feel that Trump has made big strides to help them stay successful. “I don’t leave that Oval Office without him asking me: Sonny, how are our farmers doing? You take care of them,” Perdue mentioned.
He told the story of how one day President Trump was reading about milk and food prices and how farmers were struggling, but so were people that were trying to buy food. So he called Perdue early in the morning and told him that something needed to happen to help out. Three weeks later the Farmers to Families Food Box program was born. They recently announced that the programs delivered over 100 million boxes to those in need! “It helped farmers, both dairy, as well as produce, as well as protein, farmers and producers, and then our distributors in the middle,” Perdue said. Not to mention that it’s obviously helping people in need of food. So there’s quite a few people benefiting from the program.
I brought up how it seems like President Trump gets thrown under the bus no matter what he does. This could make you feel like he doesn’t have a chance in the election, but Perdue thinks differently. “You know, most agricultural people don’t wear their politics on their sleeve, they just get it done. They don’t talk about it a lot, they just go and do what needs to be done…I don’t know if there’s a way to calculate what percentage of the ag vote he gets, but I think it’s going to be very substantial, overwhelming in fact.”
Lastly, we talk about famer’s mental health. This is something that’s a bigger issue than people realize. No matter who you are, mental health should be a priority. Perdue explained that they have a farmer network where they get the word out about mental health and there’s also a hotline number. He had some advice for those who know someone struggling with mental health. “What I encourage people to do is…learn to identify the symptoms of depression and reach out. Don’t wait for something bad to happen to that person before you say ‘I wish I had done that’. The best thing we can do is be good neighbors, be good family members, and be alert and aware when people are suffering.”
Sonny Perdue has served as the United States Secretary of Agriculture since 2017 and is also a former Georgia Governor. Perdue was explaining how things work after the election. If Joe Biden’s elected President, he can choose a new Ag Secretary, but for now, Perdue will keep being an advocate and a voice for our Nation’s farmers.
