Land O'Lakes CEO: 'Rural America is the new inner city'

Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford speaks at the Fortune Most
Powerful Women Summit. (Photo by Danuta Otfinowski)

At Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C., this week, two CEOs of iconic Midwestern companies spoke about why improving the quality of life in rural America is the best way to alleviate the struggles of the farming sector of the economy, Hadley Hitson reports for the magazine.

"Rural America is the new inner city; we have to be clear about that," said Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford, perhaps recalling a series of stories that The Wall Street Journal did almost two and a half years ago.

"We probably have 4,000 to 5,000 retail outlets in rural communities," Ford said, "so the question is: can we use those platforms to solve bigger problems in the community?"

"She thinks the answer is yes," Hitson reports. "Ford said a majority of her focus now is going toward promoting broadband accessibility for rural America in order to bolster economic development and social equity. Ford is also working to help her farmers obtain affordable healthcare. She said they have enough issues to worry about and healthcare should not be one of them." And because Land O'Lakes is a farmer-owned dairy cooperative, Ford said helping rural America helps her company."

Desnise Johnson, a group president of Caterpillar Inc., agreed with Ford, and said helping rural communities is critical, since the people who work for the company are its lifeblood, Hitson reports.

Ford and Johnson both work for companies that have boom-and-bust cycles, so both say they're always looking for ways to innovate, and both say they're struggling to attract more women. "While women comprise just over 36 percent of the agricultural labor force in the United States today, Johnson is hopeful that number will continue growing," Hitson reports.