Malden airport to receive $110K USDA grant

COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack announced $14 million in new funding Wednesday to help stimulate rural job growth. Small businesses across the country will get money, including a tiny airport in southeast Missouri. 

Malden, Missouri, with just five thousand residents, wants to update its World War II era airport.

Airport manager Barbara Crayne. She says the $110,000 grant from the USDA for renovations will help attract more aircraft.

"We have an air-evac helicopter comes in. We have a lot of crop dusters because we are in an agricultural-based area," Crayne says.

But a she says a retrofitted hangar will attract corporate clients.

"The spinoff in the community is that they’re going in to the restaurants and to the shops, driving in possibly to get their aircraft, so they’re stopping at the gas stations," she says.

Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack says rural small businesses in particular often have trouble getting credit from commercial banks. These loans and grants are aimed at closing that gap.

"These small businesses will be prepared to have the credit they need to buy equipment that allows them to expand operations, which in turn allows them to hire workers," Vilsack says.

The agriculture department grants and loans will go to 69 recipients in 40 states.

Jacob Fenston, KBIA

Photo courtesy of the City of Malden.

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Vilsack: South Korea free-trade pact would benefit Missouri farmers

ST. LOUIS, MO (ST. LOUIS PUBLIC RADIO) - Missouri farmers stand to benefit under a free-trade pact currently before Congress.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was in St. Louis on Monday to urge Congress to pass the South Korean Free Trade Agreement.

He says Missouri exports large amounts of pork and soybeans. There products that have a ready market in South Korea.

“So it makes sense for us to be here in St. Louis because a good deal of those crops basically find their way to St. Louis and past St. Louis on the great Mississippi,” Vilsack said.

Vilsack is urging Congress to adopt the agreement before July. If that happens he says South Korea will eliminate 60 percent of its tariffs currently levied against U.S. imports.

“The average tariff currently assessed in agricultural products today is about 53 percent. So you can tell that when 60 percent of those tariffs are reduced immediately American products become far more competitive on the open market,” Vilsack said.

He also noted that Missouri has the most farms of any state in the country with 108,000.

Vilsack attended a ribbon cutting for the new operations center for National Agricultural Statistics Service located in Overland.

Adam Allington, St. Louis Public Radio

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