President Obama's fight for rural America is personal. He was raised by a single mom and grandparents from Kansas. He hails from a farming state, Illinois.

If we can get people to focus on fruits and vegetables and more healthy foods, we'll be better in terms of our healthcare situation.

There is more potential for economic growth in rural America than at any time in decades.

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

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.

We should also challenge this country to come up with strategies and technologies that allow us to produce nuclear energy without necessarily producing a byproduct that can be converted to something far more dangerous. I believe that can be done. It may not be done tomorrow, but it clearly needs to be worked on.

It's how you make decisions that matters, and that ought to be the question that people ask of any candidate for any executive office, whether it's mayor, governor or president. How do you make decisions? Who do you want in the room helping you make those decisions?