Saving the American dream

MADISON, Wis. — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins made her first trip to World Dairy Expo Sept. 30 in Madison. While at Expo, Rollins spoke to a standing-room-only crowd for a Fireside Chat with moderator Corey Geiger, lead dairy economist with CoBank.

“It’s inspiring to be here with all these incredible dairy farmers,” Rollins said. “It’s so fitting that this year’s Expo theme is Opening New Doors for Dairy, because that is exactly what we have been working so hard to do over the last 20 months. That starts with trade, where our America First policies are leveling the playing field, paving the way for more American dairy to be sold around the world.”

Dairy is having a moment, Rollins believes.

“We’ve been working with Secretary Kennedy, who is focused on the health component of our food supply,” Rollins said. “I’m focused on the producers, all of you, working alongside him to put real food back in the center of the dietary guidelines for America, putting your work back at the front, at the top of our trade negotiations around the world. Not that there aren’t challenges, but there are so many exciting things as we look at dairy.”

Rollins considers the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act near the top of the list, alongside Americans becoming more interested in protein-dense diets.

“Dairy is going to be in the middle of all of that in America,” Rollins said. “At the same time, we’re opening up all these markets around the world. I couldn’t be more honored to be battling for our incredible dairy farmers, to make sure that you can keep passing your farms on to your children and grandchildren.”

Rollins champions returning dairy and other healthy proteins to the forefront of the American diet.

“America is now the least healthy developed country in the world,” Rollins said. “Chronic disease is killing our youth. Three out of four military-aged young adults cannot pass the physical fitness test. Talk about national security issues? That’s a big one.”

Nearly 80% of chronic disease in the U.S. can be traced to the consumption of ultra-processed foods, Rollins said.

“Part of my job is also running the food stamp program,” Rollins said. “It’s kind of funny; I’m battling and working to preserve the agricultural producers in our country, our farmland and all we do every day. But the flip side is I also run one of the largest welfare programs in the country, which is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.”

Rollins shared that when she took office last February, the largest purchase using taxpayer dollars in the SNAP program was junk food and soda.

“There are families who desperately need this help, and I would never advocate for not having them,” Rollins said. “But when you have, at that point, 43 million people in America on food stamps, getting a pretty good benefit from the federal government, thanks to the American taxpayer, and the largest purchase with those dollars — your money, not their private dollars —is junk food and soda, we need to recalibrate our entire approach to these benefit programs.”

Rollins said retailers are being required to offer healthier options.

Alongside SNAP, the U.S. Department of Agriculture also provides more than 30 million school lunches and 15 million school breakfasts, every single day during the school year, Rollins said. 

“That’s a massive market as well,” she said. “We’re working with the states to get more healthy food back onto these school lunch plates. Our secretary of war is doing the same to feed our military. We’re using the federal government, which is the largest purchaser of food, to completely change what we’re buying to continue shifting the market. I think the future is bright for that.”

The current administration is working to bring agricultural trade back to a net surplus.

“When we left in early 2021, there was an $8 billion agricultural trade surplus, meaning we were moving $8 billion more of goods out into the world than we were bringing in,” Rollins said. “When we came back four years later, that surplus had turned into a $51 billion agricultural deficit.”

Rollins continued by adding that in just over a year, 20 new trade deals have materialized in an effort to correct that deficit, including unprecedented trade opportunities in regions like North Africa, the Middle East and East Asia.

“Every single one of those trade deals includes dairy or some component of dairy,” Rollins said. “Whether it’s cheese names, opening up the European Union and others around the world to take our cheese, butter, eggs, all the protein foods; all of that is leading in a pretty massive way around the world. We expect to have the second-best year on record, ever, for dairy exports, and it may even jump to the first best year, based on how these last few months go. I don’t know that there’s anything more exciting than dairy right now on the world stage.”

Now is the time to start looking long-term to continue creating market growth, Rollins said.

“We need to stay engaged,” she said. “You need to be talking to your congressmen, your state legislators, your governors… I do know how important this job is: to battle for what is right for our American producers, to be in the room and fight for all of you. I’ll continue to do that to the very best of my ability, but I also need all of you to step into that arena and make sure our legislators and elected officials hear from you.”

Rollins reiterated the idea that food security is directly tied to national security.

“If there is no farm, no food supply security, if we continue to offshore the way that has happened under other administrations, we not only lose the best of us, our farmers and ranchers, we lose freedom,” Rollins said. “When we lose freedom here in America, we become like every other country in the world; the American dream will no longer exist. From my perspective, this is an existential issue.”

With that, Rollins urges agriculturalists to be the ones to tell their own stories.

“You are the only ones who can tell the story,” Rollins said. “Continue to tell that story for the next generations and the future of freedom in our world.”