Secretary of Agriculture remains the only position in the Trump cabinet without a nominee. As Harvest Public Media’s Jeremy Bernfeld reports, that worries some Midwest farmers.
The Agriculture Department employs nearly one-hundred thousand people and deals with everything from food stamps to farm loans to food safety. It administers programs in rural areas, which largely supported President-elect Donald Trump.
“Well, I find it, frankly, astounding that we’ve waited so long to get an agriculture pick," says Dan Glickman, former agriculture secretary under Pres. Bill Clinton and a former congressman from Kansas. “Without leadership from the top, there won’t be strategic planning, there won’t be setting new objectives of what’s happening. It’s very difficult to deal with Congress when you don’t have political leadership on top.”
The next agriculture secretary will be charged with shepherding a new farm bill through Congress. Work is slated to begin almost immediately.