When you get a chance to sit down with a top USDA official to talk policy, direction and engage other issues, you take it. That's the case this week in the Around Farm Progress podcast as Jacqui Fatka, policy editor, connects with Robert Bonnie, under secretary for farm production and conservation.

Bonnie is returning to USDA to again work with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. And during their conversation, Fatka delves in on several topics from the Conservation Reserve Program to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. They discuss USDA's role in crafting the next farm bill, and explore the challenge of input prices and what the agency's role may be in helping farmers.

It's a wide-ranging conversation that even touches on the challenge of filling those state-office Farm Service Agency positions. And they talk about climate-smart farming.

Give it a listen.

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