Rollins: USDA to meet March 21 deadline for sending disaster aid 

ARLINGTON, Va. — Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said today that USDA expects to meet the congressional deadline of March 21 to send out the $31 billion in farm disaster aid that Congress passed in December as part of an end-of-year funding package. 

In a livestreamed speech to the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum here, Rollins said USDA is “making progress” on setting up the system to send out the aid. Rollins said the administration is working at “lightning speed,” which she also described as “Trump speed.”

Rollins spoke remotely because the plane from Texas on which she was going to travel to Washington on Thursday evening was canceled. Rollins said she had attended a livestock show, the latest of her travels since she was confirmed and sworn in as secretary on Feb. 13. 

She also noted that she will speak at the Commodity Classic in Denver on Sunday, and that she will also travel to Georgia at the end of next week and to Nebraska soon. 

Rollins said the state of the agricultural economy is “dire,” with the agricultural deficit at $45 billion, one in 10 farms “disappearing” in the last 10 years, the cost of production up 30%, and the average age of the farmer at 58. 

She said the Trump administration will work to reverse these trends. President Trump, she said, “has little patience for anything other than success” and is committed to getting a “fair deal for American agriculture in trade.”

“I am a policy person at heart … a champion … a warrior for whatever job I am given,” Rollins said. “No one will outwork me. So hopefully we will able to do a lot of good.”

TARIFFS

Rollins said she realizes that farmers are concerned about the effect of the tariffs that Trump plans to impose on other countries. She said she agrees with Trump that tariffs are an important part of the policy “tool kit.”

But she added she expects to be on the “front end” of discussions within the administration on trade and also on the “back end” to make up for any losses American farmers may experience if other countries reduce agricultural imports in reaction to the Trump tariffs on their products.

Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary in the first Trump administration, took money from the Commodity Credit Corporation, USDA’s line of credit at the Treasury, to make up for reduced farm incomes during the first Trump administration, and Rollins has indicated she will do the same. 

Rollins said she hears continuously about farmers’ labor needs and their concerns about Trump’s plans for deportations of illegal aliens. Rollins said she supports Trump’s commitments to deport undocumented immigrants, but that the president  “understands the challenges to our community.”

She also noted she hears concerns about the increased cost of labor, and pointed out that the International Fresh Produce Association recently testified that labor makes up half the expense for some of their members, and that the Northwest Horticultural Council has said the cost of labor to produce apples has doubled in recent years.

She said she has spoken with former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, about the H-2A program for temporary foreign agricultural workers.

Rollins noted that, as American agriculture has gotten more efficient and is feeding the world, small towns have declined. She said she is determined to reverse that trend.

She said she will work with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner to bring housing to rural America and with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. to bring better hospitals and medical care to rural America as well as working with Kennedy “to make America healthy again.”

Rollins said she that even though she had run a conservative think tank and been an adviser to Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, she had been “encouraged” by her conversations with Democratic members of the Senate Agriculture Committee during her confirmation process.