Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump named a 64-member agricultural advisory committee that includes six farm-state governors, the chairmen of the House and Senate Agriculture committees, some of the biggest farm operators in the country, and an Iowa entrepreneur mentioned as a potential Trump agriculture secretary. The group also includes an oil-industry executive who opposes the so-called ethanol mandate and who founded a group that challenges animal-welfare groups.
The Trump campaign said the committee “will provide pioneering new ideas to strengthen our nation’s agricultural industry as well as provide support to our rural communities.” About 15 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural America.
Trump has provided few details of his agriculture and food policies. He spoke in favor of corn-based ethanol during the Iowa caucuses. The Republican platform says farm subsidies “must be as cost-effective as they are functional … while remaining affordable to the taxpayers,” and “the expansion of agricultural exports through vigorous opening of new markets around the world is the surest path to farm security.”
Iowa businessman Bruce Rastetter, who organized a March 2015 showcase of presidential aspirants, is among the committee members. He has been mentioned repeatedly as a possible USDA chief if Trump wins the Nov. 8 election. Rastetter is chief executive of Summit Group, “which has farming operations in the United States, other investment and plans to build an ethanol plant in Brazil,” said a Des Moines Register profile in 2015.
Leaders of the committee are chairman Charles Herbster, a Nebraska agribusinessman, and Sam Clovis, an Iowa college professor and Tea Party activist who is national chief policy adviser to Trump. Their roles were announced during the Republican convention a month ago.
Committee member Forrest Lucas, founder of Lucas Oil Products, maker of lubricants for motor vehicles, is a long-time opponent of biofuels. In a biographical story on the Lucas website, he says the biomass trend is a boondoggle subsidized by taxpayers. Lucas founded Protect the Harvest in 2011 to counter “animal rights groups who want to end meat consumption, halt consumer access to affordable food, eliminate all hunting practices, and outlaw rodeos, circuses and pet ownership,” says the organization’s website.
Also on the committee are the governors of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota; Agriculture committee chairs Sen. Pat Roberts and Rep. Michael Conaway; and large-scale farmers such as Kip Tom, described as the largest farm operator in Indiana, Marcus Rust, chief executive of the second-largest U.S. egg producer, Rose Acre Farms, and Mike McCloskey, the CEO of 30,000-cow Fair Oaks Farms, one of the largest U.S. dairy farms.
A spokesman for Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa, the No. 1 corn and ethanol state, told Reuters that the size of the committee reflected support for Trump in the traditionally conservative agriculture sector, reported Reuters.
Two groups that support comprehensive immigration reform are represented on the committee, with Chuck Conner, head of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, and Tom Nassif, head of Western Growers. A large portion of the U.S. agricultural workforce is undocumented. Trump has called for the deportation of undocumented aliens.
Drawn from Virginia to California, the committee has many state and federal officeholders active in agriculture, including seven state agriculture commissioners. One member, Red Steagall, was listed as “official cowboy poet of Texas.”