Somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the food you eat has been touched by immigrant hands, and it is fair to say some of them are not here as they should be here. But if you didn't have these folks, you would be spending a lot more - three, four or five times more - for food, or we would have to import food and have all the food security risks.

Although they are some of the hardest working folks I know, rural Americans earn, on average, $11,000 less than their urban counterparts each year. And they are more likely to live in poverty.

I wish I could give you all the examples over the last two years as secretary of agriculture, where I hear people in rural America constantly being criticized, without any expression of appreciation for what they do do.

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.

Today, President Obama is making smart investments in clean energy - wind, solar, biofuels - as part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy that supports thousands of jobs, not in the Middle East, but in the Midwest.

To keep farmers on the farm we must maintain a strong farm safety net, but we will also have to build a thriving companion economy to compliment production agriculture in rural America.

In 2011, agricultural exports hit a record high and producers saw their best incomes in nearly 40 years.