Donald Trump has chosen former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue to be his secretary of agriculture, completing a protracted search with implications for how the president-elect plans to deliver on his promises to the army of rural voters widely credited with helping him win the election.
Trump on Thursday morning formally announced the pick — the final traditional cabinet department chief to be selected.
Perdue, a former Democrat who switched to the Republican Party before governing Georgia for two terms from 2003 to 2011, has a strong agricultural background, having grown up on a farm and earned a doctorate in veterinary medicine. As governor of Georgia, he also took conservative stances on immigration and voting rights and drew national headlines for holding a public vigil to pray for rain in 2007 amidst a crippling drought.
Although Perdue’s Georgia is not among the nation’s top 10 agricultural states, it is home to 42,000 farms, with a strong focus in the cattle industry.
The issue of agricultural spending seems certain to arise in the context of the looming 2018 farm bill. While the bill is Congress’s responsibility, Perdue could also be drawn into conflicts over how to fund the department’s exceedingly diverse programs – and, most of all, the enormous Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly referred to as the food stamp program, which many conservatives have sought to cut.
“It’s at great risk, and what has saved it from being chopped up into little pieces is that it’s in the Farm Bill and therefore logrolled with agricultural supports,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com