Lisa Afua Serwah Mensah
After a confirmation hearing Wednesday on Lisa Afua Serwah Mensah to become Agriculture undersecretary for rural development, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said that she hopes to move the nomination to the Senate floor as soon as possible, maybe before the Senate leaves on September 23 until after the November 4 elections.

Stabenow said that Mensah has a “wonderful background” and that there is obviously strong bipartisan support within the Agriculture committee for her nomination. Stabenow did not say when she might hold a business meeting to vote on the nomination.

A Stabenow aide said the staff is already in discussions with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., about moving the nomination forward, but that no decisions have been reached.

Mensah grew up in Beaverton, Wash. She told The Hagstrom Report that her father, who was present at the hearing, was a Ghanian immigrant and her mother was of German background and moved from Iowa to Oregon as a child.

In her testimony, she said her parents insisted that their children spent summers picking strawberries, and assured them that the work “wouldn’t kill us.”

Mensah said she “went from the strawberry fields to earning a degree from Harvard.” She also holds a master’s degree from The Johns Hopkins University and later worked for Citibank before joining the Ford Foundation and the Aspen Institute.

Her visits to Ghana, she said, have showed her that if there are infrastructure problems in rural areas “they hold back the whole nation.”

Mensah, who oversaw the rural programs at the Ford Foundation, said she is excited that USDA’s rural development portfolio includes “three mission areas — housing, job growth and critical infrastructure,” because all those programs must work together.

She said she wants USDA to work with private foundations and other partners, but she also noted that none of the foundations is as big as USDA.

At Aspen, Mensah said, she worked on “the centrality of home” in people’s lives and that she believes increasing housing is vital because it is “people’s most important asset.” The wealth gap can’t be closed, she said, without addressing housing.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Mensah that in the Bakken area of North Dakota people are making high wages but there is still a housing problem because the young working people don’t have the down payments for homes.

Mensah noted that she had also worked at Aspen on “the challenge of savings” and would bring that expertise to USDA.

She also promised Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., that she would target the broadband needs of Indian reservations in his state and “reach all areas with services.”

▪ Lisa Afua Serwah Mensah Testimony