interview with Danny Lee Ford , runoff for candidate SC Agriculture Director

What this episode covers

00:00 And welcome to the program on your Monday afternoon. Looks like we got some clouds building out there. Could get some pretty ugly weather coming up in just a little bit. Well, also hope that you folks had a fantastic Father's Day weekend. All you dads out there, I hope it was absolutely amazing for you. We've got some elections coming up on, well, tomorrow. 00:23 And one of the people that is running for office is Danny Lee Ford II, who is joining us right now. Danny, welcome to the program. Hope you're doing well, And thanks so much, Charlie. I am. I am. I'm just on top of the world right now, man. can't can't express my thankfulness for South Carolina showing up, put me in this runoff. And, you know, it's fun. It's great. It's great to see. 00:49 what's going on behind the scenes and you know, I've got them working down there, that's for sure. That's right. mean, you have really, traveled all over the state, you've met with constituents, know, hither and yon. What is the biggest thing that you have seen um that has affected you more about this race than anything else? That people just want a voice. They want someone up in the agriculture department that thinks like them. 01:17 acts like them can have that up there. So it's, you know, I mean, if you're not in the farm, you don't know how hard we work. You don't know how we speculate. You don't know the chances we take. The gambles, they say, you know, oh going to Vegas and putting your money on black's the same as, are a little bit better odds in farming. You know? So I've heard that and you know, what's always touched me that's not been popular out there, but it's been popular with me is the suicide rate in farmers is three and a half times the national average. It is. Yeah. 01:47 It absolutely is. So, I mean, what would you do as agricultural commissioner to um protect the farmers? Give them their voice back. know, I mean, there's so much bureaucracy and how it's handled now that you just you got to understand that you can't ask somebody to do a bunch of paperwork when they're in the hayfield. You know what I'm saying? Just the way they're doing it, that they don't understand what we face on a daily basis. 02:16 And I'm hoping to be able to really bring that to the Department of Agriculture and be an asset for these farmers and consumers. know, mean, right now, 68 % of our food comes from another country. And, you know, that needs to change. It needs to be easy for our producers in South Carolina to produce for our consumers. You know, right now it's harder because that Department of Agriculture regulates our producers. They don't regulate anybody out there and 02:44 China or out of state. You know, they just bring that in and put it on the shelves. And we've seen it time and time again to where it's easier for these companies to produce. And it's not the quality of product that we're producing in South Carolina. talking with Danny Lee Ford II, who is running for commissioner of agriculture. You know, you see all these people in the state legislature. mean, hardly any of those folks have ever set foot on a farm and they're making all of these regulations. 03:09 What kind of a voice are you going to be to go to the state legislature and say, listen, you guys got to, you know, pump your brakes here a little bit. Oh, man. think that a lot of them, I've gotten some great endorsements. I wouldn't ever thought it, but you know, as soon as I made this runoff and people got some hope and, um, you know, I've had all kinds of them, uh, Lee Gilry, Steven Frank, Rex Rice. Um, I mean, if I try to name them all, I'm just going to mess up. Sanders over there, Pelzer. 03:37 You know, I mean, they just piled on and it's so great that they're willing to work with me. And I know all these guys. This is not the first time we've met. They know what the Ford family is about and they're excited to get to work. And that's what I've gathered from employ ...

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