When Sonny Perdue navigated the congressional process of confirmation to his post as agriculture secretary last month, he told senators he would be an advocate for rural America.

Colorado farmers and ranchers, searching for stability in a waning agriculture economy, are counting on Perdue to keep his promise.

“He was raised by a farmer and he’s been involved with small businesses,” said Neil Fischer, president of the Douglas County Farm Bureau. “He’s unlike some of the other cabinet picks that are CEOs of major multinational companies. That’s not his pedigree.”

“He has farming roots … he’s a salt of the earth guy,” Fischer said. “I think that bodes well for farmers who are in the dirt. They are hoping they have advocacy at the federal level for their future.”

Confirmed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture post on a bipartisan vote of 87-11 on April 23, Perdue is in fact the son of a farmer from Bonaire, Georgia, and will be the first southerner in the post in more than two decades.

He’s owned several agricultural businesses and juxtaposed against many of Trump’s picks to head key federal agencies, Perdue has prior government experience serving as governor of Georgia for two terms. During his time as governor, Perdue fielded ethics complaints centered around possible unsevered connections to the family business and environmental groups have questioned his fitness for the post, according to the New York Times.

But Perdue garnered bipartisan support, earning the votes of several Democrats during his confirmation process and  strong nods from influential agriculture groups like the American Farm Bureau and Colorado Republicans like U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn.

“With his background in agriculture business as well as governance, Secretary Perdue is poised to be a significant and influential leader,” Lamborn said.

Purdue faces challenges early on at the USDA, joining the Trump administration 100 days in, taking the helm in an industry that has seen slumping commodity prices and instability, along with potential budget cuts to the department looming.

‘Finally have a farmer’

Fischer, who is also a rancher in Pine, Colorado, raising bison and grass-fed beef, said he hopes Perdue is an advocate for family farms instead of propping up large food companies like Tyson and Monsanto. He wants a better advocacy balance, he said.

“The idea of the small family farm feeding America is an old myth,” he said. “And yet there are a lot of small farm operations that are trying to figure out how to survive into the next generation.”

The state “has been hard hit with commodity prices,” with the industry at a 10-year low, said Julie McCaleb, chairperson on the Colorado Ag Council.

“The prices might look higher at the grocery store, but the farmers aren’t seeing the increase,” she said.

McCaleb cited a 50 percent drop in farm income in the last four years in Colorado and a dwindling interest from younger generations in taking over the family farm. The average age of a farmer is 55, McCaleb said, and just 1.5 percent of households are getting their income from farms, while that number was closer to 50 percent a century ago.

With economies in rural areas relying so heavily on farmers, if they’re not doing well, the surrounding businesses feel it.

“If agriculture isn’t doing well, the tractor seller isn’t doing well, or the furniture store isn’t doing well,” she said. “If we are at a 10-year decline, there’s no sharing of the wealth. There isn’t that disposal income.”

McCaleb said she is excited to have a head of the USDA with a background in agriculture.

“We finally have a farmer in charge at the USDA,” she said.

In an effort to modernize the food delivery system, Fischer has helped create an alliance amongst Colorado farmers and ranchers called Farm2Table Producers Alliance.

“We want to innovate what food will be like in the next generation,” Fisher said.

He said the alliance is innovating direct sales from the producer to the consumer, cutting costs in the process and providing fresher, local food. The service is a subscription-based home delivery.

“This next generation of farmer doesn’t want to do it like their grandfather did and their great-grandfather did,” he said. “Agriculture is really stuck in the dust.”

New farm bill

As head of the USDA, about 100,000 employees will fall under Perdue’s watch, along with the country’s food and farm programs, including farm subsidies, conservation and rural development efforts and nutrition initiatives like the federally subsidized school lunch program and food stamps.

Perdue’s USDA will also help write the rules on a new five-year farm bill, noted Sara Hagedorn, political science assistant professor at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

The current farm bill will expire next year. At stake in a new farm bill would be farm subsidies, crop insurance and other policy on trade, food safety and conservation.

The Trump administration has said it would review policies and regulations that hinder economic growth in agriculture.

Fischer said with water being such a commodity in Colorado, rolling back Environmental Protection Agency regulations on water rights would be a boost to Colorado agriculture.

When asked if the Trump administration has made agriculture a priority, Hagedorn said the industry’s impact on the daily lives of Americans is significant, so if the White House hasn’t made it a priority, it should.

“Nothing across the agriculture sector is great right now,” she said. “But rural America is probably optimistic, because farmers and ranchers are, by nature, optimistic.”

– adam@coloradostatesman.com