Last Tuesday, April 25, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America" essentially this order is to create a task force called the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity. This group of highly involved agriculturally rooted individuals is tasked to look and find legislation that harms producers of agricultural goods. President Trump specifically identified an issue dairy farmers in bordering states have with Canada. He stated, "A lot of border states, in particular, are not able to sell their dairy products into Canada, and this has been going on for a while, and we’re not going to put up with it.”
At the signing of this Executive Order, many people were present to witness the event including Oklahoma's very own Lisa Johnson Billy. Lisa a native Oklahoman serves on a committee of 14 person farmer roundtable that Trump met with before the signing of this executive order. The committee's comprised of heavy hitters in the Ag-World with members that include American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall, Valerie Earley, a national FFA officer, and Luke Brubaker, a former Top Producer of the Year winner. Lisa formally served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives District 42, which includes Cleveland, Garvin, Grady and McClain counties since 2004. She also served as Deputy Whip and Vice Chair of the Republican Caucus. Representative Billy, "termed out" after completing her twelfth term in 2016. With Oklahoma ranking 5th out all states for beef production, we are a contender in some agricultural markets. Having a voice like Lisa's, on the national level is something that Oklahoma needs, we represent a large portion of the rural and agricultural America.
The U.S. currently pays a lower percentage of our income on food than any other country in the world. This is not because we as producers work harder than other countries it's because of the help from other sectors of the U.S. including political help. Having a voice for agriculture in the office is just as important as having a tractor in the field.
