During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) questioned Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins about the Food for Peace program.
00:06Thank you for coming to Kansas, although you came when I had the flu.
00:09I know.
00:09We missed you.
00:10Please come back on a day that's not 16 below zero, and we'll show you a different side of our state.
00:17I want to talk a bit before I get to a couple other topics about food for peace.
00:23Senator Hovind and I, when we saw what was happening with Food for Peace at USAID and the State Department,
00:31we introduced legislation to transfer the authority to manage and operate Food for Peace to the Department of Agriculture.
00:37It was my understanding that both OMB and the Department of Agriculture, your department, responded to that idea favorably.
00:46And I'm anxious to have you tell me what it is that I and my colleagues ought to be doing to keep providing the commodities that we grow in the United States
00:59to people who are starving around the globe, and is this something you're still interested in acquiring?
01:04Yes, and it's my understanding this program was started in Kansas.
01:07Is that right?
01:08That is true.
01:08Yes, the great state of Kansas with about 150 farmers who came together and came up with the program.
01:15So, not surprisingly, I don't want to get ahead of my boss, and certainly Secretary Rubio and I have had very initial conversations about it.
01:24I would add I also understood that Secretary Rubio was willing or capable of sharing that responsibility or giving you that responsibility.
01:31Yeah, we've had really great conversations about it.
01:34Obviously, we'll follow your lead.
01:36And if, in fact, this is the will of Congress, and I think we would be very willing to take that on if that was your direction and would be excited to partner on that.
01:47And the elimination of McGovern-Dole, which we call in Kansas Dole McGovern, the elimination of that program is not an indication of the lack of interest in the Department of Agriculture making available American-grown commodities to people who are hungry around the globe.
02:07Is that true?
02:08That's true.
02:09Thank you for that clarification.
02:10That's really important.
02:11In the conversation that you've had about employees at USDA and the efforts to right-size, downsize, whatever the right words are, the department, let me highlight for you the importance of FSA and NRCS employees in county offices across the state of Kansas and around the country, I assume.
02:32And it was particularly troublesome when those on probation were those who were eliminated.
02:40We love the circumstance when a young man or woman out of college, returns home, goes to work for USDA in a county office.
02:48We do not have sufficient personnel in those county offices today.
02:53But we particularly love when there is somebody who is in their 20s, they come home and they raise a family in a small county of Kansas.
03:00And so would you pay particular attention to trying to make certain that county offices where farmers sit across the table from USDA employees and have a conversation about, certainly about the farm programs and conservation programs takes place, that's different than ever trying to do that on a computer.
03:22That's right.
03:22So can I, what would you tell me about your commitment to that?
03:26Well, I think it's, it's of paramount importance.
03:29And you think about what USDA is, who it is called, who we are called to serve, the initial intention of the agency.
03:37Of course, in the founding of our country, we had the original four agencies, Treasury, Defense, the Attorney General, and Treasury Defense, the Attorney General, and Justice, or War.
03:49And then just a few years later, a couple decades later, Interior was added.
03:53And right after that was agriculture.
03:55So this goes back to almost the founding of our country.
03:58And certainly, we take that very, very, very seriously.
04:02In President Lincoln's best vision and his intention in founding this agency, it was to have that on-the-ground support for our farmers and our ranchers.
04:12So as President Trump is working to make America great again and restore prosperity across our country, my role in that is to ensure that rural America sees a level of prosperity that perhaps they haven't seen in our lifetimes.
04:30And there is a lot that goes into that formula, right?
04:33There's a lot we've got to do.
04:35We've got to get government, FSA remains at the very top of that list.
04:45And I do appreciate having employees return to the office to work.
04:49Yes, that's an important part, too.
04:50Usually important, as well.
04:51Yes.
04:51I've mentioned to you when we visited about the National BioAgra facility that's in Kansas.
04:56It's the replacement for Plum Island.
04:59We had this conversation when you're in my office before the confirmation.
05:02I want to just highlight, because I have one second left, but I want to highlight that facility, that institution, and ask you to either tell me or get me a report on NBAS operational status as of today.
05:16I think it's a huge asset, and it's an important asset to the greater good of the country.
05:22And as we talked about in your office that day, a couple of months ago now, my commitment in fulfilling Congress's intent has not changed.
05:32And so I think, Senator, you and I can just make sure you need to send me reports if you're hearing anything different.
05:37But we are committed to ensuring that that facility moves forward in a way that best serves all of America and, frankly, the world.
