By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — Keith Creagh, the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s (MDA) new director, is bullish on the state despite its deep, ongoing economic troubles.

“If we can work more collaboratively with more of our partners, that’s all good stuff,” Creagh (pronounced Cray) said. “I believe fundamentally there’s a lot of opportunities out there. We’ve already had a lot of talks with the MEDC about opportunities.”

The MEDC is the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, a hybrid, public-private entity in Michigan whose mission is to advance economic opportunities in the state. In an interview last week Creagh, who took over the job of MDA director from Don Koivisto at the start of the year, pushed the idea of “clustering” to make government work more efficiently.

Clustering will involve more meetings between department heads, Creagh said. He said he’s already had more inter-departmental meetings this year than took place over a long period of time between his predecessors in the different departments. He also stated his predecessor, Don Koivisto, is “an excellent man” and helped to make his transition into his new job as smooth as possible.
Creagh said one example of how departments can work together to be more efficient involves the MDA and Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). It’s natural for these two departments to work hand-in-glove, Creagh said. For example, if an agricultural business is expanding, and some of its business involves the MDA, it’s only natural that the business might have dealings with the DEQ regarding permitting. Creagh said those issues should be dealt with simultaneously.

“That’s the type of philosophy I’m talking about,” Creagh said.
The new governor, Rick Snyder, has also added “rural development” to the MDA’s title. What will that mean?

“It is more than just siting a food processing plant in a rural community,” Creagh said.

Creagh said there are 30,000 farms in Michigan.

“Are there ways we can push farmers up the value chain a little bit?”
He gave as an example of this – a push to market high-end soybeans to the Japanese. Speaking of marketing, Farm World asked Creagh if there was any chance some of the MDA positions eliminated in previous budgets might be brought back, including some that were marketing related. “There’s always an opportunity to bring things back,” Creagh said. But he added that there has to be industry support for these functions.

Creagh reiterated that the state has a structural budget problem.
“There is a shared responsibility for everybody in this state,” he said. “We will evaluate what we do.” He added he doesn’t believe the MDA will be eliminated as a standalone department and that Gov. Rick Snyder has expressed a commitment to the department. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be more cuts.

“If you’re going to spend taxpayer dollars you have to justify it,” he said.
Creagh said Snyder will unveil his first budget in mid-February; it might be a two-year budget. Creagh is excited about his new job.

Although he worked in different positions at the MDA for most of his career, his most recent position was in the private sector, as director of industry affairs at HACCO, which is owned by Neogen, a Lansing, Mich., based diagnostics and logistics company. Creagh helped facilitate international registrations for food safety and animal health-related products. Often he worked with the Food and Drug Administration. “I talked to the governor in December about this and right away I started immersing myself in the department again,” Creagh said.

In a related development, last week the governor signed an executive order officially adding the words rural development to the MDA’s name. From now on it will be called the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

“This should be seen as more than just a symbolic name change,” Snyder said. “This should be seen as a clear signal that my administration intends to work with the agriculture industry to help it grow in order to bring more and better jobs to our rural areas, which are suffering with some of the highest unemployment rates in the state.”

Last week, Snyder also named two new members to the Michigan Agriculture Commission. They are Diane Hanson, a potato grower from Cornell and Bob Kennedy, vice president of operations at Auburn Bean and Grain Company in Auburn. “The commission is very representative of the agricultural diversity in our state,” Creagh said.

Creagh said he had an opportunity to speak with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) last week. Stabenow is the new chairwoman of the agriculture committee, replacing defeated Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.). “Sen. Stabenow is a great friend of agriculture,” Creagh said.