A healthy workforce is essential to grow our state and compete in the global marketplace. These actions are important to improve the health security of Iowans by making healthcare more affordable and accessible.

The lack of access to proper nutrition is not only fueling obesity, it is leading to food insecurity and hunger among our children.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy.

In the past 40 years, the United States lost more than a million farmers and ranchers. Many of our farmers are aging. Today, only nine percent of family farm income comes from farming, and more and more of our farmers are looking elsewhere for their primary source of income.

To help producers serve larger institutional customers like schools and hospitals, USDA has helped fund new regional infrastructure like cold storage warehouses, commercial kitchens and local slaughter facilities.

Hillary Clinton was in rural America during the Iowa caucuses, but I think the nature of a campaign makes it more difficult once you become the candidate. There's a messaging opportunity here throughout, not just in the election season, but before the election, the opportunity to underscore what government is doing in a positive way in partnership with rural folks. I think it's a messaging issue. It's being there physically, talking to folks, listening to people, respecting and admiring what they do, and then making sure that they understand precisely what the partnership is.

Very few people know that my department is responsible for 1.2 million home loans since I have been secretary. That's 1.2 million families that are living in homes in rural America that would never have homeownership, but for the United States Department of Agriculture's programs. We have to do more of educating people about the partnership that does exist between rural America and their government.