By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
The U.S. Senate has confirmed an Iowan to serve as the U.S. Under Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development.
Glen Smith of Atlantic is now in charge of the distribution of USDA loans and grants for housing, health care services and utilities. Smith suggests the agency can play a key role in expanding access to the internet in rural America. “In 1936 under the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rural Development was charged with the challenge of bringing electricity to our country’s rural regions, a mission that was admirably achieved,” Smith said during his confirmation hearing. “Given the right resources, Rural Development should strive to achieve that same level of success in rural connectivity.”
Smith told senators rural prosperity is linked to adding value to raw commodities. “Rural Development could and should play a key role in that value added investment and entrepreneurship encouragement,” Smith said.
One of Smith’s farms borders the “Elite Octane” ethanol plant in Atlantic and he says the operation shows how investing in value-added enterprises pays big dividends. “It’s not just the 80 jobs at that plant. It’s all the support services and businesses it engages and the wealth it pumps into the trade area from the premium price paid for corn for the ethanol that’s distributed all over our country and all over this world,” Smith said. “Capitalize those premiums by long term investment rates — you’re talking hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars over time that’s pumped into that rural economy.”
Smith has served on the Farm Credit Administration’s board of directors since 2017 and was its CEO from mid-2019 through the fall of 2022. Smith said government officials need to understand the sophisticated financial organizations that are loaning money. “As I get to USDA, certainly that’ll be one of the first questions I ask,” Smith said. “Where are we in financial technology?”
Smith indicated technology can help solve some personnel issues as the division he now leads deals with 50 different financial assistance program. A recent federal report shows the USDA shed about 20,000 employees last year.
Smith grew up on a farm and graduated from Iowa State in 1982 with an agricultural business degree. The farming operation he started in 1982 now includes two-thousand acres and a beef cow herd. He also founded a farm management company that does business in about 30 Iowa counties.
