Tom Vilsack: “I appreciate your bringing this issue up, and I think you are absolutely right.”

if you authorize it, if Congress creates the opportunity for this, we will be more than happy to utilize that program.

this budget is at a critical point, at a transformational point, in my view, in rural America, and in agriculture.

What I can tell you, Senator, and I will get a specific answer to that hypothetical.

I would say, frankly, that as a Nation we have underfunded research in agriculture for far too long.