Vilsack tells Rural Futures meeting to 'remind America about the importance of rural America'

"The future of rural America is tied to how well the rest of America understands and supports it," Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said Tuesday in his keynote address at the Rural Futures Conference in Lincoln, Neb., Kate Howard Perry reports for the Omaha World-Herald. Vilsack told attendees, “Now is the time to re-emphasize, re-educate and remind America about the importance of rural America."

Perry reports: "Job creation in rural communities is possible with a focus on redirecting food waste to other purposes, exploring money-saving and environmentally friendly conservation strategies and creating an economy that includes production agriculture but isn’t dependent upon it, he said." Vilsack also spoke about the need for a new Farm Bill, and how not having one is hurting rural communities. "The public discourse about the Farm Bill has focused on the Supplemental Assistance and Nutrition Program and farm subsidies—but little in between, he said. The bill also means money for research, education and jobs, he said, and those issues need to be better explained to the 99 percent of Americans who aren’t in farming."

Ronnie Green, vice chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska, "said Vilsack’s message connected perfectly to what became a running theme of the conference: connecting young people to rural communities and getting them to invest in the future of their hometowns." Green told Perry, “Young people need to be a part of the solution." (Read more)