Washington, DC — Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack — leaving his role as US Agriculture Secretary in three weeks — will have the second-longest tenure as the nation’s top ag official.
Vilsack grew up on the east coast and, after graduating from law school, Vilsack moved to his wife’s hometown of Mount Pleasant. He was elected as the town’s mayor, then as a state senator before he won two terms as Iowa’s governor. Vilsack was Secretary of Agriculture during the Obama Administration and President Biden asked him to return to the role four years ago.
Vilsack says one of the highlights of his second run as U-S agriculture secretary has been seeing an uptick in the number of farms in Iowa.
The USDA conducts a census every five years. The last census in 2022 found the number of farm units in Iowa had increased by about one percent the number of farmers had increased seven percent from 2017. Vilsack says the commodity-based system has rewarded size and he’s proud of programs at the USDA that helped increase the number of Iowa farms operating on fewer than a thousand acres.
Vilsack is not planning to retire.
Vilsack turned 74 on December 13th. The only other person who has served longer than Vilsack as the nation’s secretary of agriculture is former Iowa Congressman James “Tama Jim” Wilson. He was ag secretary for 16 years and served three presidents.
