speaker mr garcia mr garcia was selected to serve as administrator for the farm service agency in july of two thousand and twelve this is a very high level position he previously served as deputy administrator for farm programs where he managed all of episodes programs under the production emergencies and compliance division conservation and environmental programs division and price support division he served as the state director for the state of texas and as the agricultural program manager for the farm service agency in texas he's had a thirty five year career with u s d a during which he has received many honors and awards  including the prestigious f s a administrators award for service to agriculture he's a native lifer texas which is a southern part of texas and he was raised his family five hundred acre farm he received a bachelor of science degree and animal science from texas a and i in kingsville which is now texas and now and he was recognized by the as the college of agriculture is two hundred two thank you susan good morning thank you all for the invitation here as susan mentioned i am from texas and she mentioned the very southern part of texas so i never get to see snow ok so i am in with all the snow here i was were coming over here i'll just click in pictures on my i phone i mean you kept understand you know i'm from where it gets one hundred two degrees when it in the summer and only twice in my life have i seen snow where i'm from and it only was about maybe half an inch each time so we're going crazy out there trying to build a snowman and things like that but it it melted within hours and so now but it's  it's beautiful here i was flying in and just white i'd like to come over here in a different time of the year when whenever your are growing crops and what i've seen what i've what i've heard is you all do a great job in  agricultural area here in minnesota so thank you for the invitation here as susan mentioned i am the administrator of the farm service agency it's part of seventeen agencies within the department of agriculture and she mentioned that i did grow up on a farm in texas how many of you here are involved in agriculture raise your hand ok i need a little more hands i'm going to get you some more hand how many of you here eat ok there we go we got the hands up reich how many of you here wear blue jeans or we go well if you eat and if you were blue jeans you're involved in agriculture and i say that because i'm a cotton farmer back in texas and i like for people to be paying those eighty dollars blue jeans like my daughter pays i went crazy one day i took her to the to the mall  my wife and i and she was looking for per blue jeans and they didn't want to tell me how much they paid for the jeans i still wear those old cowboy i'm grew up on a farm and ranch i were boots and they're you know maybe twenty dollars but it's crazy but i don't get that much money for it it takes a pound and a half of cotton to make a pair of jeans ok but i only made get like a dollar fifty for that pound and a half of cotton so somebody else is making the money but anyway good i'm glad that you all are involved in agriculture right so i know that many of you here are immigrants and you might be interested to know that my great great grandfather was also an immigrant immigrated from from the country of mexico back in the late eight hundred s and so that's that's why i'm excited to be here today because years from now your grandchildren your great grandchildren will be like me they may be someday given a speech in front of an audience like this and will say their successes started with the seeds that you all planted so for those of you unfamiliar with farm service agency typically f s a we have over two thousand offices throughout the nation in almost every county in the nation we also have offices in hawaii which is  part of the united states you know and we have offices in guam and we have offices in the virgin islands and puerto rico so we cover a large area and we cover a large area of producers so our network of offices is unlike any other agency and r c s to wilson came up i mean they also have a large network of offices throughout the united states in these countries so the closest example just to give you an example it's like the post office where you go buy stamps or you go sent you know send mail you know in a small town there's that little post office you can always depend on in those small towns we have u s d a offices that you can depend on so we are the gateway feel like u s d a to to the farmers and ranchers across america we  focus as dep mentioned on on human begin and farmers and immigrant farmers like like yourself so our network of offices is how we provide that those personal services to you all to other farmers throughout the country and that's what i want to talk to you a little about today so i'm very proud that f s a is one of the original co founders of this of this conference folks this is one of a kind kind of conference this kind of conferences do not happen everywhere in the nation so i want to compliment you and the committee and compliment you all for a tendon in this cold day heck you know i would probably stay home on a saturday and been sleeping but you all are here and that is wonderful so you can get that information that you need but i want i want to say something here last fall president obama announce that two of this top three priorities for the remainder of the year would be a farm bill and an immigration bill so as some of you may know you know a farm bill is a legislation that established a food and agricultural priorities for the u s normally for a period of five years and when i speak about farm bill i speak about programs that we have with farm service agency that extension has that n r c has has all the other agencies but that also includes nutrition food nutrition service food stamps women infants and children's programs that's all part of this farm bill in fact over seventy five percent or close to seventy five percent of the total budget the total amount of money that comes from the farm bill goes to nutrition services ok so the other twenty five percent goes to programs for us for n r c yes for extension for research many other things that u s d a does so the farm bill is very important and congress takes a look at this every five years why every five years i don't know i'm going to have to ask congressman dave about that but but really agricultural changes so much every year i mean i think you look at the past five years i've recalled your changes so it's wise to look at it every now and then and see what changes need to be made so as as as as this week in the state of the union the president said again emphasize the importance of agriculture he talked about how we must continue to work to strengthen the biofuel economy a sector that's very important to minnesota agriculture and other parts of the country he talked about the importance of international trade selling american products overseas that's important ninety eight percent of u s exporters are small businesses like you like yourselves ninety eight percent so our farm exports have experienced the strongest five year period of economic growth in history but many of you sell your products locally  n farmers markets restaurants schools all kinds of places so the message that the president and the message the president was that he will not stand still if you listen to the state of the union he said that he will not stand still he will keep moving forward invest in the first class jobs to create a first class economy here in the united states so what does that mean for you all here in this room what does that mean for us well it means you're part of the president's plan so it also means that you can rely in the u s department of agriculture to help keep your farm in operation strong to keep your farming operations growing so what you've build becomes better than you've ever known help in your you your family your neighbors and your communities that's very important so the leader of the u s department of agriculture i've been talking to you about us which has quite a few agencies is secretary tom vilsack he's originally from from the state of iowa which not too far from here but he's worked hard over the past five years to implement the president's vision for farmers like yourselves and other farmers throughout the country so over the past five years the number of farmers markets in the u s has grown by sixty seven percent that's quite a bit lot of farmers markets around i live in washington d during the summer and spring every every saturday they have several farmer's markets around there and that people just flock to get home grown tomatoes and squash and all kinds of vegetables it's amazing the number of people and they sell everything so u s d a now has close to eight thousand farmers markets on our official list eight thousand other the other thing are food which are central locations that kalat and market and distribute local foods are also increasing nationwide there are there are now more than two hundred food hubs in throughout the nation and operation which has increased sixty eight percent also i know that you're going to have a topic i think tomorrow or today on food crops so in fact over the past five years food grown locally like to crops you grow has been among the top ten trends as are recognized by the national restaurant association so guys that means boy you're doing something good you're doing something people want if you have a product that people want they're going to buy it right plan but most of all it's a sign that your hard work each day and every way u s t a wants for you to continue this momentum to help you grow and your farming operation become stronger so i mentioned earlier i'm not just talking about best bolters a lot of farming going on through the united states right i'm a cotton farmer a lot of people here in minnesota grow corn and they grow soybeans have worked with us before much of what i will say today may be familiar but for those others i hope you learned something from us today about all the ways that we may be able to help you so i'd like to share a little bit up information on our programs that we have first one of the largest barriers the things you have to overcome is have a network of support systems or groups that can help you navigate through legal issues through your financial situations your tax issues technology that can help you improve the way you grow your crops or raise your your cattle so there's a lot of different sponsors here today that will provide that support function for you all so on behalf of u s d a and i think i can speak for for any of the other organizations here that are today we pledge our our support type pledge our support for you all every step of the way as we as we work in partnership with you all so if you're a new farmer i would encourage you to visit our offices when you come in we you know we look at your your form on a map we can make you a copy of it a photograph will assign a former number for you so when you register your farm we have your address we can provide you with information the latest information of any programs that we have so it's important to stay in contact with you so i want i want to tell you that once you start giving us information i want to make sure that you understand that u s d a is required by law to keep all of your personal and private information safe and confidential we are not going to give it away to anyone unless you authorized to give the information out so i want to assure you of that you know i think you can you can speak to any long time farmer that has done business with us and i think they can tell you that they can trust us to trust our agencies to keep that information confidential so another another thing about you know if you want to become a farmer so what who do you call who you know what is it that you have to have what you have to have land right you have to obtain land and sometimes it's tough a pain in farm someone else may pay a higher rent price than then you can pay it's difficult so land is expensive land rent it's expensive and but we don't sell land  not sell land but there are thousands of acres of maybe churches schools towns absentee land owners that don't live within the state live somewhere else that are looking at rent their land to someone to grow crops so you know we may have a conduit there some people sometimes make talk to us and say hey i'm looking for a renter or they may post something on our bulletin board that we may be able to help you so if you're a new and begin and farmer and you know someone who is selling farmland u s d a may be able to help you purchase that land so visit an f s a office to learn more about this so you don't even have to earn land to participate in f s a programs and in r c s programs if you rent land you are eligible to participate let's talk about what else you need for farming operation thanks susan mentioned there's going to be a tractor out there that you can go look out today you know you need equipment right you know you need capital you need you need land you need equipment so that also can be very expensive the banks can can help we can also help with some low interest loans to purchase equipment we can help with loans to provide you with the needed money to grow your who grow fruits and vegetables i think probably many of you may grow fruits and vegetables we have a program i think that mentioned the non insured assistance program it's a long old title right to hate the strong titles that we give but it's it's called nap and what what we can do there we can offer you security in case of a disaster happens you have a drought or you have excess excess rain that hurts your crops we can help you with that program but we also have some programs where we have some loans that that can provide some cold storage for your vegetables so you can store them until you're ready to sell them so visit a office to to learn more we have this new program that's been in existence for a year called the micro long program and it's loans up to thirty five thousand dollars there's less paperwork less fewer requirements for these smaller loans and they have been very successful we in one year since we initiated this program throughout the united states we had over thirty five hundred micro loans to the country in minnesota u s d a issued ninety eight micro loans and thirty eight of those micro loans were for women and minority farmers so many of you have children of course that that are interested in the agricultural business if one of your children is involved in four h in the forage program through the extension service is involved with f f a through the school agricultural program we have some loans called loans up to five thousand dollars for these students to to have a project maybe buy a half for and and breed that have for or maybe have a project for their livestock show so we have some use loans available up to five thousand dollars for youth because our youth will eventually become our new and begin and farmers here throughout the country so i mentioned the non insured assistance program that we have available and so we have we have a lot of programs that may be able to help you and we want you to visit our office to learn more so finally i want to talk to you about language and culture and if you were born in a different country you have a different language other than english or your cultural heritage is different than your neighbors or if you look different than your neighbors sometimes it's difficult i kind of know how that personally feels so all of us here today who are sponsors of this conference i think our message is that it is our mission to make it better so many of you are first generation americans you may have different different experiences w governments of your home countries the united states government including the department of agriculture has a very strong rules that are designed to honor the languages and cultures of the many people live in this country so the rules prohibit discrimination in all forms so we have established procedures independent from what we normally do which can help you if you experience discrimination so i want you to know that us committed in honorine your language and your cultures president obama said in his speech earlier this week end quote here in america seshu depend not on where we were born but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams and quote and you know the president is right agriculture cannot succeed without a spirit of community and a spirit of cooperation so in conclusion i want to share with you some words that i as  of an agency that has eleven thousand employees throughout the country consider what i call my customer pledge that u s d a will provide prompt and courteous service by a knowledgeable well trained staff it's important to me u s d a will fully inform and educate our customers regarding all aspects of f s a programs and will even help you with aspects of other agency programs provide you that information u s d a will provide you with the most up to date information and respond in a timely manner to your request and your questions a will respect all human differences that's very important for us and u s d a will provide you a good experience that will encourage your return we may not be able to help you that time you visit our office but we want to treat you in a way that you will come back to us and maybe we can help you next time so you know my my grandfather used to say you may not remember their name but you'll always remember how they treated you and we want to treat you right in our offices so again visit an f s a office to learn more we're there to serve you thank you for listening to me today for putting up with my my talk i hope i  hope some of this may have been benefit to you and i wish you success in this conference i think you've got a great program for this day and tomorrow so thank you all so much for having me you mr see i just want to add one footnote to what you've heard today it wasn't too long ago that i learned that the united states department of agriculture was founded by president abraham lincoln and it was known as the people's agency and so you are the people and they're here to serve you please don't be intimidated because there are programs that they offer that can be helpful i hope people of wonderful conference were really excited that you're here so now we're going to go and you have an hour to look at exhibits i hope you learn a lot welcome and have a great