The Iowa legislative session begins on Monday, January 13th and agricultural issues are being considered. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig shared what is top of mind for his office, “Many of those things that affect family table issues, community investment, overall business climate in the state, also affect agriculture so we care about those things deeply. But we’re also going to have some specific things related to ag. Always looking at market development. And really trying to ramp up our Choose Iowa program, which is a program to promote Iowa grown, Iowa raised, Iowa made ag and food and beverage products. We’ve got some grant products within that for dairy innovation and meat processing that we’ll do.”

He also highlighted environmental items, “Looking to continue to have a strong presence when it comes to our soil conservation and water quality. And ensuring that we’ve got the resources to provide cost-share to farmers and cities, but also to have the people that can go out and do that work, and provide that technical assistance. So we’ll continue to ask for strengthening of those conservation programs. And the other major category that we’ll be looking at would be around that area of animal disease. And are we adequately staffed to be able to respond to those things, can we exercise our plans, do we have the equipment that we need – just ensuring that we’ve got the capability in the State of Iowa to effectively respond to a foreign animal disease.”

For the full interview with Naig, tune into KCII News on Monday and listen to the In Touch with Southeast Iowa program.