Who might be the next Secretary of Agriculture?</

Nov 14, 2016

The New York Times has released a list of possible candidates

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

With the U.S. election over, President-elect Trump is starting to assemble his cabinet.

When it comes to agriculture, the New York Times released a list of four possible candidates, all of whom were named to Trump’s agricultural advisory committee.

Sam Brownback
Before being sworn in as governor of Kansas in 2011, Sam Brownback served as Secretary of the Kansas Board of Agriculture from 1986 to 1993. And as a member of the U.S. Senate, Brownback served on the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.

Chuck Conner
The current chief executive officer of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, Chuck Conner served as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2009. For a brief period between September 2007 and January 2008, Conner served as the Secretary of Agriculture.

Sid Miller
As Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller, an eighth generation farmer and former agriculture educator, fought the Environmental Protection Agency’s expansion of the Clean Water Act. He promotes locally grown and manufactured products through the GO TEXAN program.

Top left to right: Sam Brownback, Chuck Conner
Bottom left to right: Sid Miller, Sonny Perdue

Sonny Perdue
The son of a farmer, Sonny Perdue served as Georgia’s 81^st governor from 2003 to 2011. In 1976, he earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) said regardless of political allegiances, farm groups and government need to focus on working together.

“We’ve got to work with an administration regardless of what their party might be,” said Bob Young, chief economist with AFBF. “We fully expect to work with the Trump administration.”

Video: LALEXPERT: Sclerotinia cycle and prophylactic methods

White rot, also known as sclerotinia, is a common agricultural fungal disease caused by various virulent species of Sclerotinia. It initially affects the root system (mycelium) before spreading to the aerial parts through the dissemination of spores.

Sclerotinia is undoubtedly a disease of major economic importance, and very damaging in the event of a heavy attack.

All these attacks come from the primary inoculum stored in the soil: sclerotia. These forms of resistance can survive in the soil for over 10 years, maintaining constant contamination of susceptible host crops, causing symptoms on the crop and replenishing the soil inoculum with new sclerotia.