Half A Brain
OPINION: When Donald Trump returned to the White House, many people with half a brain could see the results for the world might be a bit average, and our boy has been busy trying to prove them right.
Tom Vilsack has been confirmed to take up his old role as the head of the US Department of Agriculture.
Former US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack has been confirmed to take up to his old role as the head of the US Department of Agriculture.
Following a Senate vote last month, Vilsack returns to the job he held under the Obama administration in new President Joe Biden’s cabinet. His nomination met little resistance in the Senate, which only set aside 20 minutes for debate over his nomination.
While farm groups welcomed the nomination of Vilsack, Biden faces some political headwinds in the US farm sector.
In the first Farm Journal Pulse to gauge support for the Biden Administration, only 14% of the 1,459 farmers surveyed said they approve of the job done by the new administration.
Of those surveyed, 75% said they strongly disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as President.
At his confirmation hearing, Vilsack noted that while he is returning to his former job, the circumstances are very different.
Vilsack served as USDA Secretary for nearly the entirety of the Obama administration, from 2009 until 2017.
After leaving USDA, he was chief executive of the U.S. Dairy Export Council.
Prior to his first stint as agriculture secretary, Vilsack was Governor of Iowa from 1999-2007.
The 2026 Holstein Friesian NZ Black & White Youth Auction has once again proven the strength of support behind the breed’s young people, raising $20,130 for the HFNZ Black & White Youth programme.
Westpac NZ has become the first New Zealand bank to receive approval from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to secure and leverage kiwifruit growers' Zespri shares.
Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) and Pāmu (Landcorp Farming Limited) have developed a new way for landowners to earn revenue from existing native forests.
Despite near universal optimism in the rural sector, a panel of New Zealand’s leading food and agri minds caution that the sector must be intentional about its future path.
The dairy industry cannot rest on its laurels despite providing one in every four export dollars earned by the country, says DairyNZ chief executive Campbell Parker.
The Government is looking at intervening on behalf of Waikato farmers who face new regulations around agricultural land use while Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms are underway.

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