president barack obama named former iowa governor tom vilsack as the u.s. secretary of agriculture. and syngenta had previously named a bill sac the biotech industries governor of the year known for ferrying about unmanned santo's jet support of an effort to genetically engineer dairy cows and successfully eliminating g.m.o. free zones in iowa bill sack is just the latest in a long line of industry cheerleaders lawyers and p.r. professionals who move back and forth between the boardrooms of biotech giants and the public regulatory agencies that are supposed to oversee them despite dr hansen's assertions the safety of genetically modified crops cannot be known because there has never been a long term independent food safety study of even one single g.m.o. even the data collected by the corporations is kept secret from the public this is the same arrangement that gave rise to claims that as best d.d.t. and cigarettes were safe. panda owner can determine what those crops can be used for and they have expressed only the biotech corporations have expressively forbidden. use or testing th

jim webster, what about this piece from earlier this year, talking about agriculture secretary tom vilsacklivering what it described as a dire warning to the 51 million farmers, ranchers and other residents of inhabiting rural america before a farm group in washington last month? his message, rural americans are becoming less relevant in the country's increasingly urban landscape and unless they find a way to reverse the trend their voice will continue to fall on deaf ears in washington and around the world. >> guest: i'm sure he was talking very sincerely about his belief that rural america is lacking, the numbers we talked about sort of air out the. what he doesn't say though is, offer anyway to ameliorate that. what kind of policy, structure she would be thinking about to take care of it? my sense is that the farm bill before congress right now, the most important thing for rural america is the food stamp program. because you have many counties that are persistently poor. and just from decade to decade to decade continue to be poor, income transfers such as food stamps are a very critic

today piece earlier this year talking about agriculture secretary tom vilsack delivering a dire warning to the 51 million farmers, ranchers and residents inhabiting rural america last month. his message -- guest: i'm sure that he was talking very sincerely about his belief of the rural america is lagging in the numbers we've talked about bear out that. what he doesn't say though is offers any way to emil rate that. what kind of policy should we be thinking about to take care of it? the most important thing for rural america is the food stamp program. because you have many counties and john has a map that shows it that are persistly poor from decade to decade continue to be poor. income transfers such as food stamps are a very critical part of economic activity in those counties. host: what do we know about the wealth distribution in rural counties and numbers of poor? guest: the poverty rate in rural america is a little higher than in urban america but we have seen a very sharp increase in rural poverty and especially in child poverty since the recession. but jim is right. you can map o