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Ag secretary touts growth in agriculture industryOKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer is encouraging President-elect Obama to consider the successes of the Bush administration’s agricultural policies while deciding what course his new administration will follow. Schafer said the new president also will have to address the global issue of food security and find the resources that will be needed to feed the estimated 925 million people in the world who are hungry. “This is the challenge of the 21st century,” Schafer said during the keynote address at the Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s annual convention in downtown Oklahoma City on Nov. 14. Schafer said American agriculture has enjoyed “remarkable prosperity” during the past eight years with unprecedented growth in foreign markets that now import more than $100 billion worth of American agricultural products. “A new global marketplace is emerging,” Schafer said. American farmers and ranchers export $30 billion in products to Canada and Mexico, the nation’s top two agricultural partners, he said. Schafer, former governor of North Dakota, said the Bush administration has negotiated 17 free trade agreements. Eleven have been fully implemented, and agricultural exports have risen more than 70 percent. “The question for the next president is whether we will continue to seek broader markets,” Schafer said. Schafer said Bush has been a strong advocate for conservation, increasing spending by $21 billion on such issues as soil conservation, preservation of wildlife habitats and environmental issues. The administration also has supported infrastructure improvements in rural America, spending $50 billion on local water treatment systems and similar projects. “Further investments are going to be needed,” he said. Emphasis on renewable fuels has brought dramatic change to parts of rural America, creating new jobs and economic opportunity while helping to bring energy security to the nation, Schafer said. On food security, the Bush administration has increased participation among those eligible for food stamps from 54 percent to 67 percent. And America currently provides half of the world’s food aid. But Schafer said more needs to be done to export American agricultural infrastructure and techniques to give overseas farmers and ranchers the tools they need to feed themselves. The Obama administration also must address an animal identification program designed to trace livestock movements from birth to slaughter in an effort to pinpoint a single animal’s movements after a disease is discovered. Some livestock producers in Oklahoma and elsewhere have declined to participate in the voluntary tracking system, which the government promised to create after the nation’s first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in December 2003 in Washington state. “It’s an important public policy,” Schafer said. But many farmers resist it because they feel it is government intrusion. “There’s a natural tendency of producers to want to be independent,” he said. Advertisement
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