Vilsack: ‘Made in Rural America’ campaign, investor forums will help rural small business
February 08, 2014 | 03:00 PM
The “Made in Rural America” campaign that President Barack Obama announced on Friday will focus on encouraging rural small business to export, but will not be focused just on farm products, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
In a briefing aboard Air Force One on the way to East Lansing, Mich., for the signing of the farm bill, a reporter asked Vilsack why this effort is needed, if agriculture exports are doing so well.
“This program is not limited just to agricultural products,” Vilsack responded. “This program is also going to focus on the fact that in rural America there’s a lot of manufacturing, a lot of small manufacturing. And we need to do a better job of creating new market opportunities for those small manufacturing facilities so they can add jobs and expand, just in the way agriculture has seen an expansion.”
Vilsack said the forums would be jointly sponsored by the Agriculture Department, the Commerce Department, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Export-Import Bank and “will do a better job of educating people in rural America about the opportunities.”
“It's just enormously helpful to have the president’s focus on this, because it’s going to reawaken the need for small business to think globally,” Vilsack said.
“It’s going to allow us to get information out about various programs that this administration has launched, including an insurance program that the Ex-Im bank has that basically says to the small manufacturer, look, don’t worry about selling something overseas — you don’t need to be concerned about not being paid, we’ll guarantee you payment, we’ll assume the risk of nonpayment, it’s going to make it a lot easier for small businesses to export and that’s going to create jobs.”
Speaking of a conference planned to encourage Wall Street to invest more in rural America, Vilsack added, “The ability for us to have an invested rural conference is really about drawing more capital into rural America and equating people with the opportunities.”
"The demand is out there," he said. “The fact is that folks in investment banks are not fully aware of those opportunities. This investment conference will give them a chance to learn about those as well as the bio-based product manufacturing, the bio-refinery opportunities to invest in.”
In a briefing aboard Air Force One on the way to East Lansing, Mich., for the signing of the farm bill, a reporter asked Vilsack why this effort is needed, if agriculture exports are doing so well.
“This program is not limited just to agricultural products,” Vilsack responded. “This program is also going to focus on the fact that in rural America there’s a lot of manufacturing, a lot of small manufacturing. And we need to do a better job of creating new market opportunities for those small manufacturing facilities so they can add jobs and expand, just in the way agriculture has seen an expansion.”
Vilsack said the forums would be jointly sponsored by the Agriculture Department, the Commerce Department, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Export-Import Bank and “will do a better job of educating people in rural America about the opportunities.”
“It's just enormously helpful to have the president’s focus on this, because it’s going to reawaken the need for small business to think globally,” Vilsack said.
“It’s going to allow us to get information out about various programs that this administration has launched, including an insurance program that the Ex-Im bank has that basically says to the small manufacturer, look, don’t worry about selling something overseas — you don’t need to be concerned about not being paid, we’ll guarantee you payment, we’ll assume the risk of nonpayment, it’s going to make it a lot easier for small businesses to export and that’s going to create jobs.”
Speaking of a conference planned to encourage Wall Street to invest more in rural America, Vilsack added, “The ability for us to have an invested rural conference is really about drawing more capital into rural America and equating people with the opportunities.”
"The demand is out there," he said. “The fact is that folks in investment banks are not fully aware of those opportunities. This investment conference will give them a chance to learn about those as well as the bio-based product manufacturing, the bio-refinery opportunities to invest in.”
