NASDA Sets 2025 Policy Priorities

The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture has set its priority agenda for the year with the passage of a complete new Farm Bill at the top of that list, to no one's surprise, but there are others on there as well.  Ted McKinney, CEO of NASDA says research funding to universities is close behind.

“We're not worried about applied research. I mean, companies like the seed companies, the equipment companies, the biologicals, livestock, livestock genetics, they're there.  They are doing very well," McKinney noted.  "We're talking about that basic research, those labs that go do things like invent hybrid seed corn from what happened in 1930s and ‘40s, and my goodness, there's a lot of room for that with gene editing and other things like that.”

McKinney said partnerships like those between the federal and state governments are an area of concern.

“When cuts are coming on those areas or the people that perform in those areas, we're kind of interested," McKinney stressed.  "So we're not we're not wringing our hands yet, because we still think that those are likely to be sustained and maybe even replenished. But we're in that grave zone, that fog area where we don't really know which is where a lot of this is these days. So we have to keep that going, because it's, it's our food safety at many, many levels that's in question.”

Labor is a hot topic for NASDA as well, and particularly the need for year round workers.

"We need full time employees in dairies, growing more so in swine operations and even in poultry, we just can't get the labor that we need. So to help us move from a seasonal program only to a guest worker, nobody's saying make them citizens yet, but move that guest worker to a seasonal right year round is very much one of the priorities.”

Finally, McKinney stressed the need for trade and especially diversification.

“The plus-ups that we're getting through a couple of programs have been simply magnificent," McKinney added.  "If the need to diversify away from China, not leave China, we'd love to keep selling them as much as they'd like, but we have to diversify. It's probably a wise risk management strategy anyway. Well, then you better go get to know those other countries and those purchasers and those farmers and those industries there.”

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