USDA recently announced Minnesota’s new Farm Service Agency and Rural Development state directors.

Taking the helm at FSA is Joe Martin. Leading RD will be Brad Finstad.

Joe Martin (Photo by Staci Martin)

Martin is a graduate of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He has nearly 20 years of experience working within nonprofit, government and private sectors of agriculture, including time with the Minnesota and American Farm Bureau Federations. He has served as assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and worked as an independent agriculture consultant. Martin was raised on a farm in central Minnesota. He now lives in rural LeSueur County, where he and his wife, Staci, run a small cattle operation.

Martin joins the Minnesota FSA today.

Brad Finstad (Photo courtesy of Center for Rural Policy Development)

Finstad is president and CEO of the Center for Rural Policy and Development in St. Peter, Minnesota’s only state-wide nonprofit, nonpartisan rural policy research center. Finstad has been CEO of the center since 2008. He previously served three terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Source: USDA, Center for Rural Policy and Development