After keeping the rural voters who put him in office on edge until the last moment, President Trump nominated Sonny Perdue, a former Georgia governor now heading a global agribusiness trading company – Perdue Partners LLC – to be his agricultural secretary. The night following Trump’s announcement, Perdue took the stage at the Bipartisan Inaugural Gala Celebrating American Agriculture and promised to “make American agriculture great again”.

The good news is that Perdue clears a bar far too few Trump cabinet nominees seem to meet – he has experience in government and management, as well as knowledge about the department he’s been selected to lead. This is a relief, given the breadth of authority of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), an agency of nearly 100,000 employees with an annual budget over $140m. The bad news is, Perdue also has a great deal in common with other cabinet nominees: a whole lot of money, close ties to big industry and a track record that bodes poorly for the interests of the broader constituency of the USDA: the American people.

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As Georgia governor from 2003-2011 (and 2009 Biotech Governor of the Year), he supported factory farm expansion, cracked down on immigration and opposed air quality regulation. He famously thought the best tactic for a state suffering from drought was a prayer vigil. And at a time when food systems contribute as much as 25% of global greenhouse gasses, Perdue joins the growing ranks of cabinet nominees who deny climate change science, calling it “a running joke” and a reason “liberals have lost all credibility”.

A telling signal of what to expect from Perdue is the reaction to his appointment from commodity associations, traders and brokers. The National Chicken Council called him “a welcomed choice from the ‘Broiler Belt,’” while The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association praised his “unique and expert understanding of both the business and scientific sides of agriculture”. The American Farm Bureau Federation celebrated the “outstanding nominee … a businessman who recognizes the impact immigration reform, trade agreements and regulation have on a farmer’s bottom line”.

Missing here is a key clarification and something purposefully obscured by these voices: not all farmers have the same bottom line, so whose will Perdue prioritize?

To be clear, we are not splitting hairs – agribusiness and its boosters intentionally portray their interests as the interests of “American agriculture”, as if that represented a homogenous block, implying that all farmers and ranchers benefit equally from policies that benefit Big Ag.

There are indeed farmers who share interests with large scale corporate agribusiness – according to the USDA, over 80,000 farmers post sales over $1m annually. Yet these farmers make up less than 4% of the farming population, and there are over 2 million farmers with sales below this figure. Important to recognize are the roughly 700,000 growers – a third of American farmers – who earn between $10,000 and $250,000 annually, comprising arguably the agricultural equivalent of the middle class. It is these farmers, the rank and file of American agriculture, who are unlikely to be served by Perdue’s agenda.

Perdue’s track record suggests he will prioritize policies and programs that aim to intensify production and exports of commodity crops like corn, soy, wheat, cotton, peanuts and rice for global markets. The important question then is: how will the income and profits from rising exports be distributed?

Increased exports may appear to be a boon for farmers, but windfalls are not always widely shared, as production rises and prices for farmers subsequently drop. Meanwhile, the middlemen – commodity brokers, processors and traders (not so coincidentally the agricultural sub-sector that Perdue’s own company calls home) –will continue to reap the benefits of growing demand overseas.

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We can also expect Perdue’s USDA to slash incentives for conservation on farms that safeguard land and keep water viable for future generations and ignore worker demands for better wages and protection. Perdue’s close ties to Coca-Cola have raised red flags in public health circles, concerned that the person at the helm of our nation’s nutrition and hunger programs will do little to meaningfully confront the growing obesity epidemic. Despite Big Ag’s narrative of American agriculture as a unified block, this agenda will not serve the majority of farmers and rural citizens, nor the eating public.

To maximize the benefit of public investment and provide the greatest service to rural America, the agriculture secretary should not diverge from but continue the policies of his predecessor, Tom Vilsack: supporting a broad and equitable portfolio of investment in farmers of all types. As former deputy secretary Kathleen Merrigan advised: “To lead USDA and American agriculture, and to maintain the interest of the young people who we need to repopulate our working lands and rural communities, the new Secretary will need to signal, from day one, that he represents the spectrum of interests before USDA.” It is this approach that will truly benefit Trump voters and revitalize rural economies.



If Perdue insists on serving mainly the interest of Big Ag, this will not “make American agriculture great again”. Instead, it will make American agriculture 1980s again, a decade well known in the farming community for the worst conditions their generation has endured. Plagued by low prices, consolidation and land loss, farmers and ranchers had no choice but to exit the profession en masse, unable to make ends meet.

Perdue’s agenda should not look backward toward an earlier version of the rural status quo – there is no era of agricultural “greatness” to which we must return. The best of American agriculture, we hope, is still to come. We can and must insist that Sonny Perdue instead look forward and do better. He must break stride from his agribusiness cronies and work to truly make American agriculture great – for everyone.