This is a Republican primary race.  Do you promise, if elected, to abide by the RPT platform? And if not, please enumerate what problems you have.

I support the Party platform 

What differentiates you from your opponents?

I am the Commissioner of Agriculture, I have a degree in Agriculture, I am an eighth generation farmer/rancher, I served as Chairman of the Texas House Agriculture and Livestock Committee under Speaker Craddick.  I still make my living off the land and I was a high school Vocational Agriculture Teacher. 

One of my opponents is a lobbyist that has given thousands of dollars to democrats and the democrat party. He has lobbied for big tobacco, liquor industry, payday loans, the beer industry and Monsanto.The other ran on the Democratic ticket last time and won their nomination.  I have never done any of that.

i have raised cattle, horses, pecans, hogs, sheep, peanuts, watermelons,goats, hay, grain sorghum, corn, peas,trees, peaches, and yes on occasion I have raised some cane.

Please discuss the challenges the TDA faces in dealing with the federal agencies, such as the FDA, and how you propose to meet those challenges.

We are challenged by the FDA foreign inspection service.  They inspect all foreign raised shrimp and seafood.  They only inspect two percent of the shipments.  If they find a tainted shipment they do not destroy the shipment, it is just returned to the country of origin, where it can be repacked and sent again, with a 98 percent chance of getting in.  I will continue to work with congress to get this fixed.

I have sued the EPA and Corp of engineers over the waters of the US. Thankfully Trump is now our president and I don’t have to do that anymore.  I still have to battle the Fish and Wildlife Service over the endangered species act.

 

What are the three main reasons you are running for this office? Do you see any potential conflicts of interest?

The office of Agriculture Commissioner is the only State office that requires you to have a conflict of interest to run.  To qualify you must have been engaged in some type of agriculture.

The main reasons I am running for re-election, is to continue to retool the agency and add more effencies.  Under my leadership the TDA is now inspecting all fuel pumps every 24 months, before I got here it was taking over 8 years.  I also now have a program in place to check for credit card skimmers, none existed before I was elected.

Our inspectors are driving 750,000 miles less each year and getting 20 to 60 percent more inspections done per day.

We are making school lunches great again and I want to expand on that even more.  I want to continue to market and to expand markets around the globe fo our Texas products, this too is a new program that we started.  We were on every continent on the globe marketing texas the first 12 months I was in office.

We will continue to better serve our farmers.  The organic program had a 2 1/2 year back log when I arrived, we fixed that and the train has run on time ever since.  Our pesticide audits are up over 300 percent, a better service for the farmers and the public.  Texas has not seen the herbicide drift problems that many other states are seeing, and this is largely do to our pesticide department , and their hard work.

As a new TDA commissioner, what are the first two changes you envision making?

Well, I am not new.  See the above answer for some of the changes that I have made. One other change I did make was launching operation Maverick.  This was an operation to roundup all the businesses that were not in compliance with the law and bring them legal. We found over 7,000 scales that were being operated illegally and and now they are legal.

Why does TDA, and not the Railroad Commission, regulate all fuel pumps in Texas to ensure drivers get the correct quality and amount of fuel?

 One of our divisions in the Consumer Protection Division is the Weights and Measures.  We are responsible for the oversite of anything that is sold by weight, length, count or volume. This not only includes fueling stations but others such as airport scales, pawn shops, tobacco shops, yogurt shops, sheets, cafeterias, jewelry stores, bar code scanners and many more.

we do the fuel pumps because state law says we do.

The TDA provides financial assistance to farmers and ranchers in the form of loan guarantees and interest rate reductions. Is this an example where the need is great enough to go against the free market? What, if any, changes to this do you commit to vigorously pursue?

In agriculture we continually have to produce more with less, and we loose about a farm a week now.  By the year 2050 we will have to double our food crops to feed the world. The average age of the farmer is 581/2, and the age continues to rise.  If we are going to continue to feed ourselves and the world, we are going to have to find new ways to get young people into farming and ranching. These financial  programs that we run do not compete with the private market.  They come to us when they do not have other financing options. We give these young farmers a chance, a hand up and not a hand out.  I am proud to say that since I have been commissioner, there have been zero defaults and the taxpayers have not been out one red cent for theses programs.

Please list any federal grant monies you would refuse because of federal "strings."

If it has strings we don’t take it.   I would never take grant funds that would add more regulations or restrictions on Texans. We do administer several block grants, where we are in full control of the federal funds. 

TDA leads in the development of statewide broadband services.  What business does an agriculture department have in this arena? What, if any, changes to this do you commit to vigorously pursue?

We don’t do broadband.

TDA fights obesity in Texas through a statewide campaign highlighting the 3E's of Healthy Living - Education, Exercise and Eating Right.  Who pays for this and why must the government be involved or why must it be stopped? What, if any, changes to this do you commit to vigorously pursue?

When I became commissioner, I repealed every mandate that was ever put on Texas schools by the TDA. I believe that local school boards, nutritionists and more importantly parents should decide what their children eat, not some bureaucrat.

By law we run the USDA nutritional programs in the state, or 12 of the 14 programs.  We don’t do SNAP and WICK.  We do this every effenciently.  We are trying our best and succeeding in spite of the federal government.  My goal is to have healthy kids, instead of healthy trash cans.  We have made great head way.  I challenged each school to conduct Farm Fresh Fridays, where the school serves at least one item that is fresh from a local farm.  Also on Friday we have meet the farmer day, where the farmer tells the kids where their food come from.  We have an exercise program called jump with Jill, and the kids love it. In the summer we have “meal appeal University”. This is where we train the nutritionists to think out side the box. Things like using food trucks and school food courts..  I have set us a system to link schools with local product, and so far our schools have bought about 30 million more dollars of local Texas products than preveously bought in years past.  We are making school lunches great again.

TDA provides tools, from tax payers, for communities to attract businesses and pursue other economic development opportunities. Why use tax dollars for this? What, if any, changes to this do you commit to vigorously pursue?

This is a mandate by state statute that we preform this function.  There is a good argument that the taxpayers gets a return on the investment in increased jobs and economic opportunity.  This is something most all of our rural communities lack or could use more of.

TDA administers grant funds for agricultural research to develop new technologies.  Where does this money originate?

This money comes from both state and federal funds. I turned back several million in state funds this last session.

Why is the TDA, and not faith-based organizations administering assistance to feed the hungry through the Texans Feeding Texans initiative?  What will you do to change that?

That would be the preferred way to do it, the federal government should butt out, unfortunately I have to follow federal law.  Congress should make that change,

Why is the TDA administering the Certified Retirement Community program to attract retirees? What part of the Texas Constitution requires this?

TDA administers this program by state statute and it is not in the constitution.  The legislature could end the program anytime they wish, I do not have the choice to do so.  I must follow state statute and laws.

Please explain why you do or do not support the government providing financial benefits and free services to non-citizens.

We don’t even do a good job of taking care of our own veterns, no freebies for illegals.  That is just a magnet to draw more illegals to our country.  They can come in legal if they want to be here.

TDA facilitates trade and markets development of agricultural commodities ranging from livestock to crops.  Is this done with tax payer dollars and if so, why not let those who have vested interest in it form coops?

We do this here at the TDA, it is our job to market Texas Agriculture. We have a good return on our marketing for every dollar we spend we bring back about sixty. Private industry can and does play a significant role in marketing.  We do not compete with the private sector but we leverage both our resources many times to increase results.  By state statute TDA is to market Texas products.

Please comment on the TDA's disaster relief response to the droughts  of 2011/2012 and hurricanes Ike in 2008. and Harvey this year (2017)?

We are part of the emergency response team.  We help set up and staff 74 animal shelters during hurricane Harvey.  We set up and coordinated a hay and feed hotline.  We scheduled the deliveries to the animal shelters, also suppling things like water troughs, livestock panels, transportation.

On the human side we run and supply all of the USDA commodities ( food) to the various shelters that were set up across the state.  This is no small operation.

We also have a fund set up to help farmers recover, called the STAR fund, state agriculture relief fund.  We raise private dollars for this fund and use it to match request from farmers for supplies like post and fencing to rebuild their farms.  We did this for the major fires in the panhandle and for Harvey.

Describe the proper role of TDA in dealing with Texas water issues and list at least two specific initiatives you recommend.

When I became Commissioner we didn’t have a water department, not even one employee was looking out for rural water interest. I created a water department here at the TDA, without increasing my number of employees.

in the last drought our rice farmers were cut off fromusing any of their irrigation water. Texas went from 600,000 acres of rice to 100,000.  I support efforts to do off channel storage on the Colorado and Brazos rivers to capture excess water during high flow.

I also support technology to use brackish water for fracking and also to use brackish water for drinking water by using desalinization.

I am the only statewide canidate that is promoting rain water harvesting in our cities. We should capture that and use it.  Cities spend millions of dollars getting rid of storm water.  We can take a liability and change it into an asset.

What more can TDA do to better protect or prepare Texas croplands against natural disasters?

Best thing to do is to continue to pray.

Most of the things that can be done to protect our crops against disasters, should be done by the private sector.

Please discuss the proper working relationship between the TDA and FEMA and what changes can be made to improve relief efforts.

We really don’t work with FEMA.  We do leverage some of our disaster grants with FEMA to stretch the dollars.

Please describe your philosophy of public agricultural management

The public sector should stay out of Agriculture management .  The private sector should be the only source of management, we as farmers have too much government interference already.

What firearm and carry restrictions should Texas government require of citizens? Why?

Zero, constitutional carry should be the law.