WASHINGTON — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has some harsh words about rural America: It’s “becoming less and less relevant,” he says.

A month after an election that Democrats won even as rural parts of the country voted overwhelmingly Republican, the former Democratic governor of Iowa told farm-belt leaders this past week that he’s frustrated with their internecine squabbles and says they need to be more strategic in picking their political fights.

“It’s time for us to have an adult conversation with folks in rural America,” Vilsack said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the Farm Journal. “It’s time for a different thought process here.”

He said rural America’s biggest assets — the food supply, recreational areas and energy — can be overlooked by people elsewhere as the U.S. population shifts more to cities, their suburbs and exurbs.

“Why is it that we don’t have a farm bill?” Vilsack said. “It isn’t just the differences of policy. It’s the fact that rural America with a shrinking population is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we had better recognize that and we better begin to reverse it.”

For the first time in a while, farm-state lawmakers were not able to push a farm bill through Congress in an election year, evidence of lost clout in farm states.

Vilsack cited criticism of proposed Labor Department regulation, later dropped, that was meant to keep younger kids from the most dangerous farm jobs.

“We need a proactive message, not a reactive message,” he said. “How are you going to encourage young people to want to be involved in rural America or farming if you don’t have a proactive message? Because you are competing against the world now.”