The profile for Friday's agricultural workshop with USDA and the Department of Justice has been raised with the announcement Wednesday that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will attend the event and speak. Holder will join Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney on a panel Friday morning, along with Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey. They will participate in a roundtable discussion with presentations on current issues affecting farmers. Testimony and roundtable discussion by a panel of farmers will follow. Probably one downside of the high-profile administration push is my concern that there won't be enough time devoted to farmers expressing their concerns. There is the morning panel, and a few farmers sprinkled into the afternoon panels, but the public comment period doesn't begin until the late afternoon.
Nonetheless, a lot of people will want to hear what Holder has to say on these competition issues. The general public and media interested in attending the initial workshop should register at https://go.dmacc.edu/…. However, I understand this thing could be harder to get into than a U-2 concert. I can be found on Twitter at chrisclaytonDTN.