If the USDA is in trouble, where does that leave Monticello?

To the Editor,

     As the child of a farmer, graduate of Monticello High School and the first land grant university (Iowa State), former large animal veterinarian and volunteer firefighter of a really small Iowa town, the United States Department of Agriculture was probably one of the single most important parts of the government to me for over 30 years.

     It is ironic that most of what the USDA does has little or nothing to do with agriculture. Its mission statement is: “USDA works to expand agriculture productivity and rural prosperity through the development of innovative practices and research, by improving access to technology and by providing financing needed to help grow job prospects, raise income levels and improve housing, utilities, and community infrastructure in rural America.”

     Less than a fifth of the USDA’s 2017 budget was spent directly on farmers and the crops you grow. The USDA bankrolls:

     • Nutritional assistance programs used by a fourth of all Americans, most of them poor rural children; many elderly.

     • $200 billion “bank” is only open to rural communities (fire stations, health clinics, water towers, small businesses)

     • Rural infrastructure (electricity, broadband Internet)

     • Scientific agriculture research (new farm products, combatting antibiotic resistance, increased livestock and crop production, human nutrition)

     Normally when a new president takes office, a large transition team comes in the day after inauguration to be briefed by career USDA employees and announce any tweaks to the USDA’s mission. Last year, no one showed up for over a month. When the transition team showed up, it was one guy with absolutely no governing experience. Of the 14 senior jobs at the USDA, only one has been filled (Secretary of Agriculture). It took over two months to fill former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s Secretary of Agriculture cabinet post with a Georgia governor who doesn’t have Iowa’s interests at heart (and is a piss-poor excuse of a veterinarian).

     Like it or not (and none of us do), the more rural you are, the more dependent you are on the government. Because USDA had Iowa’s back, it was a wonderful place to grow up and live despite the challenges of being rural. I have always worked to keep my Iowa veterinary license in hopes of some day coming back to raise my son there. Not any more. Iowa voters turned their back on the USDA and are turning the state into something I no longer recognize.

Mike Goedken

Piscataway, N.J.