Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Naig makes stop at Floyd County Fair

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Palo Alto, Winneshiek and even all the way down to Davis County.

Mike Naig is on a barnstorming tour — literally.

Naig, Iowa’s newly minted secretary of agriculture, stopped by Charles City on Friday to visit the Floyd County Fair.

He’s been making the rounds this summer, walking through county fair after county fair, strolling through the pig and cattle barns of one of the top agriculture states in the nation.

Naig had been to Charles City before, but witnessing the fair was a first for him in Floyd County.

“It’s great to be at the Floyd County Fair. I’m impressed. I’m just now getting on the grounds and getting a chance to look around,” said Naig. “It’s exciting for me. It’s fun to be here.”

It’s a 16-town tour this month for Naig, a Republican who’s on the campaign trail to talk to farmers and other voters about issues that matter to them.

Like the drastic drop in crop prices that have affected not only Iowans, but the rest of the world.

“There is absolutely financial stress across Iowa, there’s no doubt about that,” said Naig. “We are in the fifth year of on-farm declining income. We have our lowest farm income in 16 years.”

The big elephant in the room for Iowans right now is trade — specifically a possibly developing China-U.S. trade war.

“It’s impacting our prices,” said Naig, who took over as Iowa secretary of agriculture in March after the previous secretary, Bill Northey, left to become U.S. under secretary of agriculture.  

A weak economy for crops may take even more of a hit after U.S. President Donald Trump placed a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion dollars in Chinese goods earlier this year. That  move was a response to a perceived threat of China stealing intellectual property and technology.

“There’s financial stress in the countryside and there’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Naig. “These are important markets for us.”

China countered by placing its own 25 percent tariff on some United States’ goods, focusing especially on agriculture products.

That could tear into the bottom line of Iowa farmers, as the Hawkeye State is the second-largest soybean producer. The U.S. sold $14 billion in soybeans — its top export market — to China last year.

“We need to do something about those things. So we need to reset and rebalance that relationship, but right now ag is the target of retaliation,” said Naig.

Iowa farmers could stand to lose well over half a billion dollars, depending on how long the tariffs are in place. Iowa is also the nation’s leading producer in pork, and China has placed a tariff on that as well.

“But I also hear from people that they understand that we got to resolve some of these issues that have gone on, frankly, for far too long — especially with China,” Naig said.

Mexico and Canada are also considering tariffs on United States exported goods in retaliation for tariffs placed on their products coming into this country.

“The situation with Canada and Mexico, also we need to resolve that and bring that certainty back to our marketplace,” said Naig. “We’re urging the administration to move quickly to try to resolve this before further harm.”

Naig served under Northey as deputy agriculture secretary from 2013 to March of this year. Northey left for Washington in March and Naig took over for him soon thereafter after Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds appointed him as ag secretary.

“It was a very smooth transition,” said Naig. “We didn’t skip a beat at all. I was really able to hit the ground running.”

Naig was selected during the party convention in June to be the Republican nominee for secretary of agriculture in November, after none of the GOP candidates was able to get above the threshold of 35 percent of the vote in the primary election earlier last month.

Naig will go up against Democratic candidate Tim Gannon in the general election Nov. 6.

It’s been a whirlwind tour for Naig, who went clear down to southern Iowa in Bloomfield to experience Davis County’s Fair on Thursday. Then he stopped by his hometown county fair in Emmetsburg and traveled all the way up to the Minnesota border to make a stop in Spirit Lake.

Naig’s first stop on Friday was at the Winnebago Fair in Thompson. After he made his appearance in Charles City, he headed off to the Franklin County Fair in Hampton to conclude his Friday jaunt across Iowa.

“It is interesting. This is the great part about touring a variety of fairs. They all have the unique character that really reflects their community,” Naig said.

Naig grew up on a farm near the town of Cylinder, which sits in Palo Alto County in northwest Iowa. Naig, along with his brothers and sisters, all showed cattle, sheep and hogs at their county fairs growing up. Naig talked about seeing the Floyd County youngsters doing their thing at the fair, just like he did decades ago.

“For me it brings back great memories of 4-H and the competition. There’s pretty intense kids here who are really excited to be competing. I love seeing that,” said Naig.

“I can tell when I walk onto a fairgrounds how committed the community is to the facility. What I notice here is very active livestock exhibits going on.”