President Donald Trump traveled Wednesday to Iowa, where he got a crash course on American agriculture and the rural economy.
He first visited Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, where students demonstrated how 21st century technology is being implemented in farming. A short time later, he appeared at a rally at the U.S. Cellular Center, also in Cedar Rapids, where he gave a speech:
For the past two weeks, my administration has been working extensively on vocational education, infrastructure and technology. Here at this great facility we’ve just seen fantastic examples of how vocational training in new technologies can help make American farming even more productive, so we can compete and win, win, win, on the world stage.
We saw how today’s farmers can adjust application rates of fertilizers in their fields with just the touch of a smartphone. It’s changed a lot over the years. They showed us how they use precision agriculture to produce crops more efficiently and for far less cost. They’ve demonstrated how drones, of all things, are used to gather data on crops and how simulators are used to train students in the next generation of farming equipment.
If we continue to train our workers in these new technologies, then we will usher in a new era of prosperity for American agriculture and for the American farming family.
We must also ensure that these students have the broadband internet access they need in order to succeed and thrive in this new and very modern and very changed economy and world. That is why I will be including a provision in our infrastructure proposal—$1-trillion proposal, you’ll be seeing it very shortly—to promote, foster and enhance broadband access for rural America.
Also we know that Wall Street wants it very badly, but you know what else? The farmers also want it, and you’re going to have it. We have to make sure American farmers and their families, wherever they may be, wherever they may go, have the infrastructure projects that they need to compete and grow—and I mean grow against world competition because that’s who you’re up against now.
We will rebuild rural America.
You can see the full event, which included U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad, Iowa’s longest-serving governor, in the video clip above. {eoa}
