By Ida Brown

ibrown@themeridianstar.com



A seventh generation Mississippian, Rickey L. Cole can relate to the small businessman, particularly farmers.

“I was brought up and have lived all my life on a little 160-acre truck farm in southeast Jones County,” said Cole, who lives a few miles from where his fifth great-grandfather settled before Mississippi was a state.

“Most of my adult life, I worked in conjunction with my father. Daddy has an amazing green thumb, he could make a crop in the median of Interstate 59. My task was to take what he was able to grow and what some of our neighbors were able to grow, and market it directly to retailers. We delivered to supermarkets, fruit stands, street vendors and other retailers in most of the towns on Highway 98 and Highway 84, from Laurel and Hattiesburg, all the way over to McComb and Brookhaven and all points in between.”

Cole said that type of marketing is what is needed for Mississippi’s agriculture.

“That sort of approach is what’s needed for many of the farmers around the state who are excellent producers,” he said. “Many of them are excellent producers, but they have waited on that cooperative truck to come by and pick up their product all these years. They’ve turned it over to corporate executives (in other out-of-state locales) to take their product and sell it for what they want to sell it for and give him what they want him to have.”

Cole is the Democratic nominee for commissioner of agriculture and commerce for the state. He is running against incumbent Lester Spells, who is Republican.

“The marketing division of the Department of Agriculture and Commerce can be that network builder, can be that grassroots connection between producer and processor or retailer or even consumer,” he said.

Cole sat down with The Meridian Star Editorial Board to discuss problems he see with the department, as well as his plans if he is elected.



The Star: What was the deciding factor to your jumping into this race?



Cole: My two passions in life have been agriculture and politics. So running for this office would be a natural fit for me most anytime. But I believe that in the 21st century, Mississippi agriculture has a tremendous amount of potential that’s not being realized. After I saw how frozen everything had become for agriculture — particularly in the wake of the beef plant — and how the current commissioner was having serious credibility issues, I felt pretty strongly that it was time for a change.

I didn’t start this year expecting to run for office. I wanted to help my friend (former 4th District U.S. Rep.) Ronnie Shows with his run for this office. But when I saw nobody else was going to run on the Democratic side, I qualified.



The Star: What have you been doing since announcing your plans to run for office?



Cole: I’ve been at it full force, full time and full tilt since March 1; I’ve put about 43,000 miles on the car, so far. I’ve done close to 250 public appearances, raised a little money, talked to a whole lot of people, made a whole lot of phone calls. I’ve started making the rounds to the newspapers now, because people focus on the election at election season.



The Star: Talk to us about some of that potential in Mississippi agriculture that you say is not being met.



Cole: Mississippi agriculture is about a $6 billion business right now. Two billion of that is poultry, one industry. Something like $800 million of that is price supports from the federal



government. So about a third of it is federal support and our more prosperous industry in agriculture.

Being from Jones County, I happen to think that the Mississippi poultry industry is an excellent success story that really involves small farmers, bankers, government and the processors all working together. Many times people think that big business and small business or big agriculture and small agriculture are enemies. Well, Sanderson Farms couldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for the local growers who take on the debt and actually raise the chickens. And the growers couldn’t borrow the money if Community Bank and other banks hadn’t given them the loans. And the banks couldn’t have loaned the money is government didn’t guarantee the loans. That’s a good success story.

I think we haven’t done the job we should and could do in the production of so many other agricultural products, particularly food products. Why haven’t we been able to replicate this with pork production, with fruit and vegetable production. I think the answer to that question certainly doesn’t lie with the land, we’ve got the richest land in the United States. It doesn’t lie with the farmers, the farmers are some of the most productive in the world. It doesn’t even lie with the people who would do the investing, because we’ve got some visionary bankers and visionary folks who work at the Mississippi Development Authority who would work in tandem with the right kind of leadership.



Star: So what is the hold up?



Cole: We haven’t had the vision and leadership in the commissioner’s office to take the lead on investing in prudent small non photo-op opportunities with the small farmers at the grass roots. The governor and the commissioner of agriculture and commerce are not going to be there to cut the ribbon when a dairy farmer buys new milking machines. They’re not going to be there to help dig the holes when a guy gets a contract to grow 10,000 more pepper plants.

But small farms or small businesses are not exercises in nostalgia and they are not hobbies. They are part of the engine that drives our economy. And the potential for most crops in Mississippi simply is not being met because the leadership in Jackson seems to be preoccupied with these poorly thought out, big-ticket schemes that when they collapse, when they fail, they give agriculture and economic development a real black eye, a real set back.

It’s going to be tough for me as the new commissioner to go to the legislature in the coming term and talk to them about agriculture and economic development. That’s going to be impossible if Dr. (Lester) Spells is re-elected for him to go and talk to them about anything because he spent the last year trying to blame the beef plant on the legislature and on the Mississippi Development Authority and on Mississippi State University and on The Clarion-Ledger and on everybody but himself. He refused to take responsibility. And that speaks to the credibility issue.

I recently met with a dairy farmer in Hazlehurst. He inherited his farm, had milked for years and finally had to shut down the production part of his operation, they still have show cattle. He went to work in a chemical plant there in Hazlehurst, hates the job, 12 hours night shift, but he had to make a living and get some health care for his family.

Immediately when I left him my wife called and told me to pick up a gallon of milk. Four dollars and sixty-nine cents for a gallon of milk, and I just left a man who couldn’t make a living producing milk and I had to stop and buy milk at a price one could barely afford.

The disconnect between the producer and the retailer and the wholesaler is a gap that the marketing division at the Department of Agriculture and Commerce should fill. But the marketing division has been so preoccupied with this $4 million farmer’s market on the fairgrounds that’s open two days a week and serves a handful of vendors — nothing against those folks, but that’s small potatoes. If you want to help Mississippi farmers to sell fresh fruits and vegetables, the first place you go is to Mississippi supermarkets and get a way for our farmers, make the connection for our farmers’ products to get on the shelves at Winn-Dixie, Wal-Mart or whoever owns the supermarket. That’s not being done, it’s not being done in an effective way.

Then you have this other program that Dr. Spells touted, the “Make Mine Mississippi” program, which really ought to be called the “Make Mine Fifty-one Percent Mississippi” program. Any product that’s packaged that’s “51 percent Mississippi Made” gets the “Make Mine Mississippi” label. There’s nearly 1,000 of those products now. I want to add another tier to that labeling program and until people smarter than I do the research on it, I’m calling it the “One Hundred Percent Mississippi” program, to where when you go to the supermarket and see a pack of meat there’s a label that says “One Hundred Percent Mississippi Produced.”

All the polling of consumers that I’ve seen shows that Mississippi consumers will pay more for Mississippi products.



The Star: If elected commissioner, what are your goals?



Cole: Commissioner Spells approach has been that of a bureaucrat. My approach will be that of an advocate. I think that I can identify and hire quality people who can manage the basic day-to-day responsibilities of the agencies.

I want to be a leader who goes out and listens. I subscribe to the concept of serving the leadership. To me, the people at the top of the chain of command are the voters, the citizens. I don’t have all the answers. I will approach this job very differently than he (Spells) has. I will be a leader who listens and I’ll probably wind up being the dumbest guy in the building because I want to surround myself with quality. I want the best of the best, particularly in the marketing division.

Agriculture gives a $6 billion income now. I think with the right kind of leadership and the right kind of team, we could come pretty close to doubling that just by increasing the number and variety of food items that we produce, process and sell within the state. Go to the supermarket — everything other than tropical and citrus and apples, we can produce right here in Mississippi. Virtually all the meats, all the dairy products could be produced right here in Mississippi. And that creates tremendous value added.