Exclusive: USDA Sec. Rollins Gives Inside Look at Trump Administration’s Agriculture Success, Great Relationships with Farmers

In a post-Biden era, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has worked hard to build back the trust between the country’s unsung heroes — farmers and ranchers — and Washington, DC, emerging as a strong advocate for rural America and its key industries while collaborating with fellow cabinet members.

Breitbart News spent a day with Rollins as she conducted U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) business at the agency’s headquarters, the White House, in meetings with members of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), and while riding through the middle of D.C. on a tractor.

On the last Friday of March, the secretary began her busy morning by speaking to AFBF state presidents and other representatives from around the nation in a conference room on Capitol Hill.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins (Breitbart News)

“I feel this job every day, and it is the greatest honor of my life,” Rollins began her remarks. “Nothing will ever — no matter what comes next — will ever come close to this moment in time of what God has called us to do; to save America, to save rural America, to ensure that our children and our grandchildren have the same America that we all grew up in.”

“I believe so sincerely that when we walk out in a little under three years from now, [and] hopefully hand off all the hard work and good working infrastructure that was built to a similarly-minded team, that we will look back at this moment in time and say it was hard, it’s tough in farm country, but we were able to reverse the trajectory of the future of America,” Rollins continued. “Not just agriculture, but the future of our country, because of what we — and I don’t mean me or my cabinet or the president — we all together, everybody is doing right now to make it so.”

Sharing how she brought up the war-related fertilizer price-surge at President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting the day before, she told the AFBF representatives, “I don’t think that agriculture has ever been perhaps spoken about as much as it has in the last year in this White House and cabinet meetings.”

While going over some positive updates, Rollins told the farmers and ranchers that there is still much work to be done. 

“In the last year, we were able to bring fuel down. Labor’s come down about 40 percent for those who are participating in the labor programs. We’ve made some good progress, but there’s still so much to do,” she said. “So that’s a really, really big piece of this — especially as you all and whom you represent are operating on such thin margins. We get that.”

“Corn and wheat and dairy [are] expected to be up, export-wise, 25 percent this year […] There is good news, but also I will never, ever shy away from or not fully recognize the fact that there still is so much work to do.”

When the floor opened up for the representatives to speak, Colorado Farm Bureau (CFB) President Carlyle Currier stood up to tell the USDA chief some of his state’s concerns.

Colorado Farm Bureau (CFB) President Carlyle Currier (Breitbart News)

Despite being dangerously low on time before she was expected to meet with Vice President JD Vance, Rollins engaged in a lively conversation with Currier and immediately offered to continue direct communication to resolve his issue. 

She finished her remarks with “God bless you all” before being whisked off to the White House for her closed-door chat with Vance. 

USDA staffers then took Breitbart News and a group of visiting family farmers from Oklahoma, Kentucky, and other states across town to tour the agency’s gargantuan headquarters, which was once the largest building in the world and remains the only federal agency that sits along the National Mall.

A passionate special adviser showed off the miles of extensive hallways dedicated to biology and research, describing how public service and science go hand-in-hand at the department. 

USDA (Breitbart News)

Like other federal agencies, the building features portraits of the sitting president and the secretary that greet employees on their way into work. 

Rollins’ personal office was a testament to her passions, with countless pictures of her husband and four children and mementos from her accomplished career in public policy and service. 

When she returned from the White House, she sat down in her office for an interview with Breitbart News, which quickly became an animated conversation that revealed her close relationships with key figures in the agriculture industry, her colleagues in the Trump administration, and how serious the backlog of issues left behind by the Biden administration was. 

Reflecting on how her rapport with farmers has grown since she was first “unexpectedly” picked for the job by Trump, Rollins said she was pondering it while speaking to the AFBF crowd earlier that morning.   

USDA (Breitbart News)

“I was thinking that as I was standing up there. I spoke to that exact same group a year ago, and I was an unexpected choice for this job — both from my perspective and theirs,” she said. “I was an unknown.”

Former Texas Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) had been the Agriculture secretary under both the Obama and Biden administrations, so he had 12 years of experience. 

“Obviously, I have an [agriculture] background, but I had never farmed before,” Rollins said. Her early life “revolved” around Future Farmers of America (FFA), livestock shows, and rodeos, according to her January 2025 confirmation statement. 

“Last year, I’d only been in the job for maybe a month, and I hadn’t really met them all,” she continued of her relationship with the Farm Bureau. “[I] was trying to kind of feel my way how to best spend my time. I think I was very well received. They were glad I was there, but it was very different than today.”

With over a year under her belt as the Trump administration’s top dog on agriculture, she said she has built a much stronger bond with the AFBF. 

“Today, I felt like you could feel the love [and] the appreciation,” Rollins stated. “They kind of know me now. They know how hard we’re working and how I’m doing everything I can — 20 hours a day — to do as much as I can in these four years as possible.”

Even during “hard times” in the farm economy, the secretary said she still feels “positive support” from those who make up the backbone of the U.S. food and fuel industry.

Noting her warm interaction with the CFB president, Breitbart News asked, “Is that a typical way that you would handle issues or concerns brought to you by different states and different farmers? Do you like to talk to people directly?”

“Yeah, to probably the great frustration of our team, even though they’re very wonderful about it,” Rollins joked. “They’re like ‘Brooke, you have to stop giving your cell phone number to everyone.’”

One of her staffers laughed, exclaiming, “We work it into our day!”

Rollins said she much prefers talking to actual farmers than lobby groups and big donors. 

“I don’t really do any of the cocktail parties or the dinners. I don’t meet with lobbyists. Rarely meet with DC trade associations. They get meetings, they have access — but my time, what I have discerned, is so much better spent with the actual people on the ground, like the gentleman you were talking about.”

Instead of the fancy shindigs, she said she has spent a large chunk of her time working with the USDA’s internal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team to shrink the massive waste amassed under former President Joe Biden.

“I can’t give enough credit to Elon Musk, who I still am in contact with today, and to the DOGE team that came in,” Rollins said. “I know some of the other agencies weren’t as excited about it. I believed it was one of the greatest, most fortunate things that happened to us.”

If President Donald Trump had not been reelected after four years of former President Joe Biden, she stated, “I don’t know that we would have ever been able to stop and uncover — to the tune of billions of dollars.”

“I mean, there was a grant that went to someone in Iowa that was studying how racism had affected the pest industry — like it was crazy, crazy stuff,” she highlighted as an example.

A recent major initiative rolled out by the USDA is the “Product of USA“ program, aimed at promoting “clear standards for origin claims” on meat, poultry, and eggs.

With this new project, ranchers can voluntarily mark their products with specialty labels if their animals were exclusively born, raised, harvested, and processed in the United States.

According to Rollins, she had been hearing frustration from ranchers over American consumers being duped into buying beef or chicken that they thought was local, but was actually from overseas.

Product of USA “is our first of what will hopefully be many steps to begin to rebuild the American cattle herd,” she said, noting that she would like to spread it to produce as well. 

“There are only a few things that can’t grow or be produced here. America is the richest in bounty, in soil, in weather, all of the above,” she explained. “But through the years, as there’s been consolidation and vertical integration, we’ve begun to see the loss of the American farmer and rancher.”

“Bobby Kennedy was the first to say it, and I stole it — that the farmer and the rancher truly are the center to Make America Healthy Again. So, Product of the USA is a step in the direction.”

Rollins pointed out that the establishment media did not believe that she and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would have a positive working relationship when they first began leading their respective agencies — but that could not be further from the truth, according to both of them.

During Rollins’ interview, two women quietly entered the office and took a seat at the coffee table, listening to the secretary’s reflections and anecdotes with soft smiles on their faces. At the end of the chat, Rollins introduced them as her mother and sister who were visiting from out of town. 

Her mother also happens to be Texas state legislator Helen Kerwin. 

When asked how proud she was of her daughter, Kerwin said, “Very!”

While the interview was scheduled to be just 15 minutes, Rollins never glanced at the clock as the conversation flowed to the half-hour mark. 

There was finally a hard stop when Rollins again had to be whisked off to the White House, this time for an agriculture event with President Trump and hundreds of farmers gathered on the South Lawn. 

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After addressing the agriculture industry side-by-side with the president, Rollins caused a bit of a media frenzy by leaving the White House property in a big red, white, and blue tractor — and riding down Constitution Avenue back to the USDA headquarters. 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins (Breitbart News)

The Farm Bureau leaders from Rollins’ home state of Texas made it very clear that she is representing them with more passion and efficiency compared to the previous administration in phone interviews last week. 

According to Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) President Russell Boening, the USDA chief has been “very engaged” with local hardworking farmers. 

“She’s been engaged. She’s been responsive, receptive, just, I mean — all the good things you can say. She’s been there. She’s met with us … as a group, individually, and in small groups.”

“It’s been really enjoyable to work with her on the issues that really face Texas agriculture, and, quite frankly, all of agriculture.”

Boening, a fourth-generation farmer and rancher who is in his twelfth year of leading the TFB, also commended Rollins for having “a good rapport and relationship with other cabinet members.”

TFB Secretary-Treasurer Brian Adamek holds a similar view on the secretary, telling Breitbart News that Rollins has done a “remarkable job.”

“You know, we’ve had relationships with the Secretary of Agriculture in the past, with other leaders — but this one just seems different,” he explained. “She’s hands-on. “She’s getting out to the farm. She’s having these conversations with producers, wanting to know what’s affecting us. And, she hears our needs.”

Adamek noted that Rollins has been especially helpful on trade and tariff issues that impact farms and ranches — unlike the Biden administration. 

“We had no contact with Secretary Vilsack. I mean, he worked for us, but he didn’t make contact with the Texas Farm Bureau […] We never had that relationship with the Biden administration. They never reached out to us wanting information.”

If anything, the results and reception from the people Rollins represents speak for themselves. This USDA is worlds different from the last one that focused on handing out diversity grants, rather than feeding the country. 

Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.