Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler sits down each week with Southern Farm Network’s Rhonda Garrison to discuss “Today’s Topic.”
Earlier this year, Gov. Pat McCrory established the North Carolina Food Manufacturing Task Force, and Commissioner Troxler is one of its core members.
The task force will look at strategic ways to leverage our existing activities in food processing and manufacturing, work on recruiting new food businesses to the state, and look for ways to make sure existing food companies are able to thrive.
Numerous food businesses have succeeded in North Carolina, and several new ones have opened in the past year or are in development. And food manufacturing is an important component of the state’s $78 billion agriculture and agribusiness industry. The Commissioner believes that building the food manufacturing sector will help achieve the goal of growing agriculture and agribusiness to a $100 billion industry by the year 2020.
Richard Linton, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, is the chair of the task force. In addition to the Commissioner, other core members are Lt. Gov. Dan Forest and Commerce Secretary John Skvarla. Thirty or more additional members will be serving on the task force in an advisory capacity.
Click on the audio player below to listen to Commissioner Troxler and Rhonda discuss the potential for food manufacturing in North Carolina.
[Audio:/wp-content/uploads/Troxler_6-23-15.mp3|titles=Today’s Topic for June 23]
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