More than half of America's rural counties are losing population and with it, political representation.

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.

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.

Americans ... want leaders who share their values, understand their needs, and respect their intelligence.

Over the past two years, the Obama Administration and USDA have worked to build a foundation for sustainable economic growth in rural America. At the center of our vision is an effort to increase domestic production and use of renewable energy.

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?