Vilsack Appreciates Farmers’ Contribution
To America
The California Farm Bureau Federation reported TODAY that U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture Tom Vilsack discussed the vital importance of farmers and ranchers
to the American economy and society at the recent American Farm Bureau
Federation Annual Convention in Texas. Some of his comments are paraphrased
here.
Vilsack said agriculture is not as appreciated it ought to
be. Many Americans are so far removed from where their food comes from; they
may be three, four generations removed. So we need to continue educating our
friends in urban and suburb urban centers on what farming is and what it does.
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| U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack |
Americans are fortunate to have extraordinary diversity
in food, and unlike many people in the world, we don’t have to worry about
where our food comes from. We have the capacity within our own borders to
produce what we need.
Ninety percent of the population lived in rural America and
farmed when USDA was founded, and that 90 percent slowly reduced. So today,
it’s 15 percent who live in rural America and less than 1 percent who farm.
What do the other 99 percent do? They are not required to
stay on the farm because there is less than 1 percent of America that’s
producing so much that we can feed the world and ourselves. Every person in
this country today has the option to live someplace else and to be someone
else, to be a lawyer, a teacher, a doctor, an engineer, a construction worker,
a business owner, to live anywhere in this country. Why? Because our farmers
are so enterprising, we don’t have to worry, and we get to do what we want to
do.
Freedom: That’s what farmers mean to this country. It’s more
than food security and paycheck flexibility. It’s the extraordinary opportunity
in this country that you can be whatever you want to be, not just simply by
dreaming big dreams, but because you’ve got somebody in some rural community on
some farm or ranch, in some orchard, producing enough so that you’ve got the
nutrition to be whatever you want to be, and that ought to be celebrated. The
country ought to be reminded of it, and every farmer in this country should be
valued, appreciated and thanked, because we in this country have been
extraordinarily blessed by Growers.
Labels: California Ag Today, Farmers Deliver Freedom to America at American Farm Bureau Federation Convention, Vilsack Appreciates Farmers' Contribution to America