With the new administration set to take over on Monday, there are some in the ag industry who are very optimistic about the potential new Agriculture Secretary. Rusty Halvorson has more details.
As he prepares to move back into the White House, President-elect Donald Trump did nominate former White House aide Brooke Rollins to be his Secretary of Agriculture.
NCBA President
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) President and Wyoming rancher Mark Eisele is cautiously optimistic about Rollins taking the reins of the federal Agriculture Department.
“She’s not a deep seated producer in that sense, but she is sensitive. She has kids that show steers, which actually sounds pretty good. She can be sensitive to her things. The traceability rule will actually affect her kids. But more importantly, we think she’s, for lack of a better term, she’s trainable. We can actually show her direct course and back it up with science and numbers and facts, so that she can make good decisions. We were limited in our access to Secretary Vilsack, this will be a refreshing, an open book for us, we feel very positive about it at this point.”
Eisele says cattle producers see some potentially positive things looking ahead to the second Trump Administration.
“It took him a while to learn how to operate in DC the last time. Now he knows who the players are, and we also have a better feel for who he’s going to have for appointees and Cabinet picks, and we’ve already been working with them. We started working with their Chief of Staff, quite a while ago. And so we’re making sure we have a voice at the table on that.”