Ryan Ray
U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham began her 14-county “North Florida Farm Tour” Tuesday in Tallahassee with an announcement that nearly all of the counties in her Second Congressional District are now included in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “StrikeForce” initiative.
Graham brought some Washington, D.C., brass back to the newly redrawn district in the person of USDA Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden, where the two led a “listening tour”-style panel at Florida A&M University .
The USDA recently expanded the StrikeForce program to include new parts of four states Friday, including rural swaths of Florida, Missouri, Montana, and Ohio. All of CD 2 is included in the expansion except Bay County, a more coastal than rural part of the Panhandle.
Graham and Harden answered questions from farmers, largely referring detailed inquiries to the dozen federal staff members the two brought in tow. Though the town hall-like event was generally short on details, both expressed optimism about the new partnership.
Started by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in 2010, the initiative is aimed at battling acute persistent poverty in rural areas. The Second District is among the poorest in Florida, and it now joins some 970 counties and parishes in 25 states under the USDA umbrella.
According to the department, the program builds “partnerships with community organizations, businesses, foundations, universities, faith-based and other groups to help challenged communities shape a future based on local assets and regional strengths.”
“We can’t do everything; we don’t say that we can,” Harden told reporters. “But where we can be of service is to concentrate those efforts by working with communities to first identify the major problems, and then use our resources in a more helpful, strategic way, rather than scattering our resources all over in an ad hoc kind of way.”
Graham said she pushed for her region’s inclusion in the program, calling up federal administrators and refusing to take no for an answer.
There is no Graham-sponsored bill or congressional initiative to help take advantage of the new USDA attention as yet, but her camp suggested action would follow her barnstorming tour of the district.
“We don’t come in with all the answers,” Harden said. “We help develop the answers by talking to local citizens about their needs.”
