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Northey says Water Subcabinet helps find solutions for farmers

USDA’s Undersecretary for Agriculture is part of the Water Subcabinet made up of federal agency leaders. Bill Northey says President Trump’s executive , “It is subcabinet officials like me that get together frequently to be able to talk about how we need to work together to make it easier for our states, our farmers in the way that we manage our policies and the way bring forward different programs.”

Northey, Iowa’s former Ag Secretary, says Iowa is the perfect example of this kind of work, “And bringing everybody to the table and talking through ‘how can we all be on the same page here?’ Let’s bring all the farm organizations together. Let’s try to figure out what kind of tools we have to understand where we’re at.”

Northey says government is a constructive part of the solutions farmers need, “We know all conservation is local. It gets done on your farm and you’re going to do something different on one field than you are another. And you need to have the flexibility to do that and we need to have policies that let you do that.”

Northey says his office has been meeting with the EPA office of Water, the Interior Department, and the Department of Energy. And, he says they meet with the Corps of Engineers often about permitting issues – such as nutrient reduction wetlands in Iowa. Northey made his comments at a farmer roundtable hosted by the Heartland Co-op with Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig.