Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins made her first visit to Commodity Classic, beginning with a message from her boss, saying President Trump hears you and will never stop fighting for the farmers and ranchers. Rollins promised to be agriculture’s second greatest champion, second only to President Trump. Rollins also had a major announcement. “Today, I’m proud to announce the economic assistance program will be called the Emergency Commodity Assistance program, ECAP,” said the USDA leader. “ECAP is the new program to distribute the $30 billion in economic funds Congress passed in December; they gave us 90 days to start distributing the first $10 billion and we are on track to beat that.” Rollins promised a streamlined application process. Priorities promoted in this speech ranged from passage of a new farm bill this year to the repeal of the death tax. Rollins emphasized “the far left agenda” is being ferreted out of USDA through the work of the Department of Government Efficiency. To date, 340 contracts valued at $300 million have been cut. “We even slashed a grant for $200,000 for a Brazilian forest and gender consultant.”
