Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue attended his first National FFA Convention this week and held a press conference to take questions about various topics, prior to addressing the group’s opening general session.
Perdue appeared at the press conference with six members of the FFA policy committee. “I’m looking at our House and Senate Congress behind me here,” Perdue joked.
The secretary was asked about the 2018 farm bill. “The ’14 farm bill made a lot of progress in helping to establish an insurance-based mitigation risk, I think you’ll see more of the same,” he said.
On the topic of USDA nominees and when Perdue will have a full complement of undersecretaries. “We’ve been slow in Senate confirmations…we’re getting them on board as we speak,” said Perdue, who noted that he expected a hearing for Sam Clovis as undersecretary of agriculture for research, education and economics “within the next week or so and we expect that to go well.”
Audio file: Perdue press conference at FFA