PHILADELPHIA, Miss.–The future of agriculture in Mississippi was the main focus of Mississippi Ag Commissioner Andy Gipson’s speech at the Neshoba County Fair Wednesday, though he did begin his speech with a repeat of his announcement that he is running for governor in the next election.
Gipson announced the F.A.R.M. plan, which he says will be way to strategically plan for the future of farming and agriculture.
F.A.R.M. stands for Future Agricultural Resiliency for Mississippi.
“It’s high time for us as a state to do what businesses do around the country and our state and that is to do a strategic plan,” said Gipson.
He said the commission that he will put together will be looking at the strengths and weaknesses within the state’s ag industry and use that to develop a plan to deal with growing markets, diversification of crops, work force and labor, international trade, food supply resiliency, technology and innovation.
“Over the next 12 to 16 months…I’ll be naming a council of private sector agricultural leaders, farm leaders, agri-business leaders,” he said.
They will be finding ways to deal with threats to ag, like low selling prices for row crops, like cotton, and threats from countries like China, which he said has been actively looking for new ways to undermine the country’s economy.
Meanwhile Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told a group of reporters following his speech that he may consider a run for governor. The Republican focused mainly on legislative issues in his speech and said next year the legislature will look at possibly passing some bills that didn’t make it through this year.
One of those is outlawing cell phones in the classroom.
Hosemann also said the legislature will be dealing with other education issues like cutting the barriers to bring retired teachers back to the classroom without a penalty against their state retirement. He also said the legislature must deal with chronic absenteeism.
“Twenty-four percent of our children are not in school. They are chronically absent,” he said. “We need truancy officers in every school in Mississippi, knocking on the door, where is your child!”
He also said a priority will be put on reducing government bureaucracy and red tape, reducing the number of state agencies and making state government more accessible.
