Strong communities ... embrace change. New discoveries require us to think differently and approach things differently, to think anew.

I think people have to remember where we were in 2009. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. We had an unemployment rate in double digits. We had poverty rates soaring. We had kids who were food insecure. Today in 2016, we have a lot less unemployment, a lot less poverty, and a lot fewer kids who are food insecure.

We have a long tradition in this state of caring for our neighbors - it is truly an Iowa value.

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.

Many young and beginning farmers start out in local markets. Some stay there, and some scale up.

Food during my early years was a very difficult issue for me. I grew up in an addictive family. My mother had serious problems with alcohol and prescription drugs. I was an overweight kid. I can remember back in those days there weren't the strategies that there are today to deal with those issues.

You know, this country today, it seems to me - it's about fear. And it shouldn't be about fear. It should be about hope and optimism and creativity and accepting a challenge and being a moral leader and being a great nation.