A Thoughtful and Wide-ranging Discussion in Eastern Ohio

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack kept President Obama’s Rural Tour rolling today with a stop in Zanesville, Ohio. Once known as the “Pottery Capitol of the World,” Zanesville is now striving to find its way in the 21st century economy.



Senator Sherrod Brown and Representative Zach Space joined Secretary Vilsack at the community forum to gather thoughts and ideas from the locals on how to revitalize community. The crowd of over 300 people filled all the seats and stood over three deep around the edge of the room for over 90 minutes of Q and A. Secretary Vilsack extended the event long after he had gotten the signal from staff that it was time to move on to the next event. As the case has been at all of the Rural Tour events, the discussion was civil, thoughtful, and wide ranging.

Audience members asked about building local food networks, protecting the safety of our food supply, international trade of agriculture products, forest management, and the pending climate change legislation. People came from all different parts of the area, and represented the wide variety of interests that form the basis of America’s rural communities.



A small dairy farmer asked about efforts to stabilize the dairy market and make it more competitive for farmers of all sizes, a cattleman expressed frustration about the National Animal Identification System program, a small businesswoman asked about loan programs to help struggling small towns, and a forester noted that woodlands are the source of many agriculture products and that the entire industry was “green” long before anyone was talking about a green economy.

Unfortunately, there were too many questions to answer even in an hour and a half, and Vilsack concluded with a request that everyone continue to the conversation by visiting the Rural Tour Web site.

Permalink  |  Posted at: 03:30PM Sep 01, 2009 by USDAblogger in USDA  |  Add Your Comment Here [0]

Secretary Vilsack and Secretary Chu discuss green jobs in Virginia

Secretary Vilsack visited Virginia today with Energy Secretary Steven Chu to discuss the many ways in which saving energy, developing green jobs and pursuing new biofuel alternatives will help to revitalize rural America.

This morning, Chu and Vilsack toured the Piedmont BioProducts plant in Danville, and discussed the refinery's cooperation with universities around the country to develop the work Piedmont is doing.

After a cheeseburger, the Secretaries headed to Buddy Mayhew's farm near Chatham, where this afternoon's Rural Tour event drew about 300 people interested in the Obama Administration's plans to create green jobs for rural communities across our nation. Plenty of questions, which has been the case at every stop on the tour and gives the Secretary a great platform to discuss the many ways USDA is touching people in states like Virginia every day, every way.

Vilsack later met with local biofuel manufacturers and local USDA employees. (USDA, in case you're wondering, isn't just in Washington -- a huge part of the revitalization and recovery effort is being led by thousands of USDA employees at the county and state levels, as well as by Foreign Agriculture Service officers posted around the world).

Stay tuned for some photos of this long, but very productive and educational, day. Meanwhile, USDA staff on the road with the Secretary are still Tweeting away as the afternoon goes on.

Permalink  |  Posted at: 03:11PM Jul 18, 2009 by USDAblogger in USDA  |  Add Your Comment Here [0]