US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, was recently in Tennessee participating in a town hall hosted by RFD TV. Vilsack laid out the Biden Administrations view for moving agriculture forward and took Tennessee farmers questions.
Thomas Capps
US Secretary of Agriculture talks with Tennessee farmers. Hello and welcome to Tennessee Home and Farm Radio, I'm Thomas Capps.
Tom Vilsack
American agriculture is one of the great gifts of this country. But I want to make sure that every farm regardless of size, has the ability to do what they love to do. And more importantly, and as importantly, they have the ability to transfer to the next generation.
Thomas Capps
US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was recently in Tennessee talking with farmers at a town hall hosted by RFD TV. Vilsack laid out the Biden administration's vision for the industry moving forward and answered the Tennessee farmers questions. Vilsack believes expanding opportunities and making farming more profitable will help keep more people in the industry and sustain it for the next generation.
Tom Vilsack
We need production agriculture, but we also need a companion system that enables that small and mid sized operation to have multiple ways in which they get money from that farming operation so that they can stay viable. Farmers are the best stewards of the land, we just want to make sure that they continue and that have the resources and the ability to do that, and that they get a market advantage. And that is by by virtue of being able to measure, quantify and verify the results. They can participate in other revenue generating opportunities with ecosystem service markets that we create through our rural development programs and through our various economic development programs, more processing capacity so that you can process that agricultural waste into a million different things.
Thomas Capps
Vilsack also believes there are many opportunities for farmers to sell their products directly to consumers.
Tom Vilsack
People really are anxious to know where their food comes from. They like the idea when they go to a grocery store that they can buy local. They like the idea that their kids are consuming locally produced items at school. They love the idea of Farm to School, they love the idea of of the local restaurant being able to say you know this chicken wing is from you know, this, farmer and this pork chop is from that farmer. We need to do more of that.
Thomas Capps
For Tennessee Home and Farm Radio, I'm Thomas Capps.
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