Open Letter To Presidential Candidates

Open Letter to 2016 Presidential Candidates,

Times are hard in the United States this year. This fact is no less true in rural areas, yet they tend to attract far less attention then other issues. Rural populations account for nearly 20% of America's population and they are the backbone of this country. Over the past college semester, I have done a lot of research on the topic of agriculture in rural America. I found that there are serious issues when it comes to this topic that need to be addressed in the coming years. This is an important topic because of how important agriculture is in the country. A small percentage of people create food for the majority of the other citizens. Agricultural laborers are marginalized, poorly paid, and many are illegal immigrants. A solution to this problem needs to be developing advanced agricultural equipment to more efficiently cultivate crops. The reason for this is to increase efficiency and to make agricultural jobs more specialized. These new careers involving technology will require education and experience. This solution would decrease the need for illegal immigrants and increase the need for skilled labor. Another problem I am seeing is the vast lack of water that farms have access to especially on the pacific end of the country. Drought has ravaged the land and forced small farmers to leave much of their land fallow. A solution to this problem is a cheaper and more efficient form of water importing from other parts of the country. This is vitally important as this land provides the nation with access to a specific type of land that allows us to grow crops not available in other parts of the country.

Thank you,
Louis Grilli