‘Bedrock of persistence, rooted in faith, and a topsoil of optimism’: Perdue gives K-State Landon Lecture

“Leave it better than you found it,” was the advice Sonny Perdue’s father gave him as a young man. Perdue carries that advice in his heart still today, as a father, a husband, an elected official and now as the U.S. secretary of agriculture.

Perdue spoke at the Landon Lecture Series at Kansas State University, Nov. 1. The series is known for bringing national and world leaders to the campus of K-State in Manhattan, Kansas, to share their leadership insights and thoughts on the topics of the day.

Perdue spoke on the themes of responsibility and stewardship; trust and faith; persistence; and optimism.

The U.S. farmer is part of a national and global family that is responsible for feeding an ever growing and expanding population, Perdue said. U.S. farmers do so with a shared sense of accountability to one another and to the future generations who come after, he said.

He will never forget the lesson of responsibility and stewardship his father taught him on their Georgia farm when he was a young man. The story goes that Perdue was tasked by his father to call around to get price quotes for lime application on a field that the family rented.

“Now, we only rented that farm ground annually, and so I asked my father, why don’t we lime the fields we own and forget the fields we rent?” Perdue said. “We could save money. But my father said, ‘Sonny, we’re all stewards of what we see and we all leave life the same way. Whether we own it or rent it, we’re gonna leave it better than we found it.” His father’s words have had a profound impact on Perdue still as he looks to the future of the USDA and stewardship of the taxpayer dollars he oversees as its chief.

“I serve you, the people,” he said. “When I took over the USDA I instituted a new motto: ‘Do right and feed everyone.’” So whether it’s attempting to make USDA as streamlined and as efficient as Amazon in meeting customer expectations, or reorganizing the location of some agencies closer to the people they serve, Perdue keeps an eye on efficiency and effectiveness of the department.

Perdue also spoke of the trust and faith in providence that farmers exhibit every time they plant a seed. Those are traits they share with the Founding Fathers, he remarked and the proof is in the last lines of the Declaration of Independence.

“That phrase, ‘with firm reliance on divine protection of Providence and faith in something greater than ourselves…’ our founders were farmers and they lived those words every season,” Perdue explained.

Of course, every season brings its own challenges, and Perdue mentioned that farmers and ranchers know the heartbreak of floods, fires, hurricanes and blizzards that can wipe out a year’s work in minutes.  But persistence, he said, is the bedrock of the American farmer.

“If persistence is the bedrock, then the American farmer is rooted in faith with topsoil of optimism,” Perdue said.

Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached at 620-227-1807 or [email protected].