EARL WATT
• Leader & Times
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins visited the High Plains Ponderosa Dairy and met with several agriculture leaders from across Kansas.
Sen. Roger Marshall and Rep. Tracey Mann accompanied Sec. Rollins on her visit where she heard challenges facing the ag industry as well as ideas for how to take agriculture forward.
From sorghum to soybean producers including those in the cattle industry and energy production, several shared their industry’s contributions as well as challenges, and Rollins took notes form each presenter.
“As you can tell I am a copious note taker,” she told the group. “I will take these back to the president.”
The roundtable took place at the dairy which is currently housing 17,000 head of cattle with each producing about 70 pounds of milk per day. The dairy is working on an expansion project to accommodate 40,000 head of cattle. The facility produces almost 1.2 million pounds of milk per day, and that would expand to 2.8 million pounds after the current construction projects are completed.
The Kansas economy is driven by producers, and Tom Willis from Conestoga also talked about how biofuels is the key to the future for Kansas producers.
Rollins, who has worked with Trump for seven years, said that in prior conversations with Trump he made it clear that the cabinet’s priority needs to be focused on the farmers of the nation.
