25x’25

By all accounts coming out of the Commodity Classic in Anaheim, CA last week, Tom Vilsack gave the speech of his relatively brief tenure as Agriculture Secretary. Vilsack’s 30 minutes before thousands of grain and soybean producers has been alternately described as “heartfelt,” “effective” and a “home run.” In his first speech to a major gathering of agricultural producers since joining the Obama administration a little more than a year ago, Vilsack struck a theme that closely tracks the 25x’25 Vision for rural America, telling his audience of a multi-faceted plan to revitalize rural communities and make the cultivation and growth of the biofuels industry a key component of that plan.

Stating that “rural America is the heart, soul and guts of America,” Vilsack should be commended for his call for dual strategies of domestic and global expansion, in tandem with expanding non-farm rural opportunities. And while much of his speech addressed overseas marketing strategies, the secretary also promised to pursue the expansion of biotechnology and to sustain policies that foster the biofuels industry.

Vilsack struck the right note when he stressed the domestic importance of building up the biofuels industry, pointing to funds being made available through the energy title in the 2008 Farm Bill and citing the Obama administration’s support of green initiatives, including a major biofuels initiative announced last month. “We are going to make sure that biofuels is a national industry,” Vilsack said.

The speech offered a rhetorical follow-up in Anaheim to a more nuts-and-bolts presentation made before the Senate Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee in Washington earlier in the week. That’s when Vilsack announced he’s pursuing a “Regional Innovation Initiative” that aims to reverse what he said were decades of recession for rural areas. He said a decline resulting from a poorer, older, less educated rural America continues to lose both jobs and population.

The initiative, he said, “will focus less on individual community and project-by-project efforts and focus more on recognizing that smaller communities are part of a regional economy and looking for ways in which we can bolster the regional economy in order to create greater activity.” Along with expanding rural broadband and linking local production with local consumption of farm products, the pillars of Vilsack’s initiative also include the growth of biofuels and biobased products, the development of ecosystem markets to pay farmers for storing carbon, and forest restoration and private land conservation.

Vilsack should be commended for his recognition that the approach to economic development in rural America must be overhauled and that a major path to reviving farm communities is through the promotion of strategies that play on their strengths. 25x’25 has long advocated that America’s farms, ranches and forestlands can help meet our nation’s energy needs and still provide ample, affordable and safe food, feed and fiber – all while providing the benefits of an improved economy, more jobs, a cleaner environment and a more secure nation. It is encouraging to see Secretary Vilsack’s clear and heartfelt articulation of those same goals.

25x'25 Policy/Funding 25x'25 Vision, Agriculture, Biofuels, clean energy, Climate Change, Congress, economic development, Emissions, energy security, ethanol, Farms, job creation, national security, renewable energy, rural America, Sustainability