Cole Responds to "Archaic" Editorial

Today the Clarion Ledger published an editorial calling the Agricultural Commissioner position useless and advising that it be done away with.

Rickey Cole is the Democrat running for that seat against either Incumbent Republican Lester Spell or Republican Challenger Max Phillips.

He penned the following letter in response and sent it to many Mississippi news outlets including this one. It is as follows:

"The Clarion Ledger calls the position of Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce "archaic.". What's really archaic is the prevailing state government attitude toward our state's largest industry: agriculture.

The scant attention given agriculture by state government is composed of a large dose of nostalgia, occasional spurts of ill-conceived, special-interest pork barrel spending, and a near-total neglect of the true wealth-building potential of the industry.

We don't always have to fly to Tokyo to find businessmen smart and resourceful enough to increase the wealth of our state. They can be found right here, on row-crop plantations, south Mississippi dairies, sweet potato farms, beef cattle spreads, and yes, even on the turnip truck. But no one in state government has the credibility, the experience, the willpower and the voice to create and implement a comprehensive plan to empower our agricultural entrepreneurs to create an economic environment in which they don't merely survive, but thrive and enrich their communities with the kind of general prosperity a state with rich land and hard-working people deserves.

Mississippians prefer to elect their public officials, and that isn't likely to change. Rather than diverting the discussion to the relevance of the office, I would suggest that the candidates, the media and the voting public spend the next four months discussing how the potential wealth-creation of Mississippi Agriculture can be maximized."

- Rickey L. Cole