The Democratic candidate for Secretary of Agriculture was in Pella Saturday morning.
Tim Gannon is a fifth-generation Iowa farmer from near Mingo, Iowa, and worked for eight years at the USDA under Secretary and Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Gannon tells KNIA/KRLS News the most difficult challenge farmers face is declining revenue and prices, which he believes have only been hurt by ongoing tariff disputes at the White House.
“We were already looking at declining farm income for the last couple of years, as we’ve grown a couple of big crops in a row,” he says. “And so, especially since the spring when the tariffs and retaliatory tariffs starting popping up, we’ve soon an erosion in prices, an erosion in futures prices.”
He says living through the Farm Crisis of the 1980s, as well as his time with the USDA, drives him to improve the rural economy.
Gannon is running against Republican Incumbent Secretary Mike Naig, who was appointed to the role after Bill Northey was selected to work for Bill Purdue in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Naig faced a primary challenge this summer, and won at the Republican Convention over Ray Gaesser in the final round of delegate voting 647-548.