SSGA helping to improve rural infrastructure

The Rebuild Rural Infrastructure Coalition is comprised of more than 250 organizations from across the country focused on rural communities and U.S. agricultural producers. The coalition is hosted and operated by the National Farm Credit Council, and is actively building consensus in Washington, DC, for action on rural infrastructure. The Specialty Soya and Grains Alliance (SSGA) met with the group to join in its activities.

Advocating for transportation infrastructure improvement to highways, bridges, railways, and port facilities is the most obvious need. Fifteen percent of the nation’s rural roads have pavements in poor condition with 21 percent in mediocre condition. Ten percent of bridges in rural communities are structurally deficient. SSGA is joining the coalition to bring focus to the needs of small business and farmers to connect with customers domestically and abroad.

“When everyone talks with pride about connecting the farm to the table, people forget that it’s the infrastructure that links it together,” says SSGA Executive Director Eric Wenberg. “Accomplishing action in agriculture requires bipartisan support and wide ranging coalitions. By joining Rebuild Rural, SSGA will connect with like-minded organizations and lend its assistance to the cause of helping rural communities.”

Rebuild Rural believes that federal resources can’t fill the entirety of the need and recognizes fulfilling the promise to rural residents requires creative solutions that pair federal, state, and local investment along with private sources of capital. This matches SSGA’s philosophy in transportation, working across the various parts of the supply chain to connect farmers with food manufacturers efficiently.

“SSGA is a trade association of business people like farmers, brokers, and transport companies who are part of the 15,000 jobs supported by each $1 billion in U.S. agricultural exports,” Wenberg says. “An SSGA member is a company that looked around at rural America and saw the wisdom of pursuing a value with the premium available for food grade specific variety commodities. They deserve respect, support, and a place at the table in national level decisions about what happens in our farm country.”