Many farmers fear for security. In a time where nothing is guaranteed, people want answers. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke in Washington to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives about a variety of agriculture topics.

Vilsack met with a panel and pledged to renew efforts to ensure equality of treatment regardless of race and to have a new focus on food safety after the latest peanut scandal.

Here he said that food safety must be improved. He feels there is no excuse for the 14 agencies that dropped the ball regarding the salmonella-tainted peanut products.

“If the FDA finds out something about peanut butter and we at the USDA need to know about it so that we don’t provide the schools, which happened in this case and thankfully no one got hurt,” Vilsack said. “And I think that we need to ultimately migrate into a consolidated system to ensure that we have the very best food safety system.”

A farmer in the crowd from MItchell County asked Vilscak for a meeting between President Obama and the federation because a few people like himself are losing farms to foreclosure. Vilsack appreciated his input and said he would try to get some communication between the group and the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

There are many options before foreclosure. Ag loans are available today. Even if the economy does not look promising, now is a great time to purchase a farm and plan for spring crops. Call 866-929-5585 or visit Farm Plus online to answer any questions you may have regarding farm loans.