(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 U-S-D-A 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.
Smith says rural prosperity is linked to adding value to raw commodities.
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.
Smith has served on the Farm Credit Administration’s board of directors since 2017 and was its C-E-O from mid-2019 through the fall of 2022. Smith says government officials need to understand the sophisticated financial organizations that are loaning money.
And Smith says technology can help solve some personnel issues as the division deals with 50 different financial assistance program. A recent U-S-D-A report shows the agency shed about 20-thousand 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.
