Awareness of rural America’s needs hollow without positive Trump Administration actions

As I’m reading USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue’s editorial in the your April 23 edition, I’m struck by how short the list of what good things the Trump administration is doing for agriculture versus the missed opportunities. I have an old friend who says, “if it looks bad, it is.” The missed opportunities to make a positive difference for ag are striking. Mr. Perdue speaks of infrastructure reforms, meaning all of the new highways and rest areas that are going to be built. The new rest areas must be built to facilitate all of the out of service trucks that can no longer be as productive due to Obama era trucking regulations (ELD mandate). These new trucking rules, if fully implemented, will make moving animals and produce difficult to impossible in many rural areas of the country, (and will increase the cost of food for all). Yet the Trump administration has still neglected to take the opportunity to “roll back” these regulations as Mr. Perdue would want us to believe.

Mr. Perdue talks of how trade enhancements have been made. Here is my list of Trump ag trade enhancements: ….

Mr. Perdue talks of how the tax cuts are making a huge difference for rural America. Mr. Secretary, there is one thing rural America needs before these tax cuts will impact us: Income. Lastly, the Trump administration has had the opportunity to underpin our ethanol industry, but rather has chosen to let it dangle, and with it the future prospects for every grain farmer here in the Corn Belt. Maybe you’re correct, Mr. Secretary, in that the President has not forgotten rural America’s needs. But it’s time that some actions be taken lest rural America start thinking our needs have once again simply been played to garner votes in the most recent election.

­—Eric Nelson, Moville, Iowa