PSPA member Duncan Allison recently attended the Chester Delaware County Farm Bureau’s Spring Banquet and wanted to share some key notes from the presentation.
No one could have left Octorara High School on National Ag Day Thursday, March 14, without being excited and optimistic about the future of agriculture in Pennsylvania. The occasion was the Chester Delaware County Farm Bureau’s Annual Spring Banquet and Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding was the keynote speaker.
When we requested Secretary Redding as a speaker, we asked for an update from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture – the critical issues that Pennsylvania is facing, legislative and policy plans, and comments from the department’s view about current events elsewhere in the world of agriculture.
Secretary Redding started by explaining that before we can figure out how to help Pennsylvania agriculture navigate the challenges and opportunities we see today, we have to know the industry we’re working with. The department commissioned a study with Temple University’s Fox School of Business that found that agriculture in Pennsylvania is 18% of our Gross State Product, which is larger than we typically think. Agriculture covers not just the production of food from plants and livestock but food processing, hardwood production (PA is the nation’s largest producer of hardwood), the equine industry, plant nurseries and landscaping. The industry supports 579,000 jobs with a total economic impact each year of $135.7 billion.
With the size and scale figured out, the department then went to work on a set of strategic recommendations for the future. They carried out a statewide series of sessions over a year, with representatives from every aspect of agriculture to gather input and develop policies based on a thoroughly informed base – actions that would:
- facilitate farm succession,
- train a workforce that can cope with greater mechanization and use of computer programs,
- ensure biosecurity and disaster readiness,
- leverage every area of scientific advance,
- ensure continued progress in agricultural production, and
- expand markets by taking full advantage of our road and train network and the modernization of Philadelphia Port to increase our farm exports throughout the world.
This mass of information and understanding has been used to produce the first-of-its-kind PA Farm Bill, a funding package related to this year’s state budget, and will guide future policy decisions.
Secretary Redding also described his own history on his family farm and the responsibility of taking over after his father died when he was still at the university (Penn State, of course). He praised Penn State for their exceptional work in research, education and outreach, and the Farm Bureau for its commitment giving back through programs like Farmers Care. He also answered additional questions from banquet attendees.
We have a secretary with a deep commitment to farming and a vision for the future that should help agriculture in our state to flourish and continue to be a major industry in Pennsylvania.
