OVER the past several years, USDA's Rural Development Agency has been "remaking" itself. That started with something entirely new for the agency: the hiring of a public relations agency in 2004. Farm Progress sat down recently with three state directors and a senior adviser to Thomas Dorr, USDA undersecretary for Rural Development. "We really didn't have a choice," began Al Johnson, senior adviser. "When government was reorganized in the 1990s, the Farmers Home Administration, the Rural Electrification Administration and the Ag Cooperative Service were brought into the Rural Economic Community Development. This all happened in 1995.
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