Today the Biden Campaign and Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is a member of the Senate Finance Committee and a Democrat from Michigan, hosted a virtual discussion on Presidential Candidate Joe Biden’s plan to revitalize rural Michigan. This plan includes tackling the climate crisis by creating clean energy jobs for Rural America. Here is a further look into why Senator Stabenow is endorsing Joe Biden.

The Biden Plan for Rural America includes:

• Creating well paying jobs in Rural America to help rural communities position themselves for middle class stability, including the ability to find quality jobs right in their hometowns, regardless of ethnicity or socioeconomic origination. But more importantly, it helps rebuild the middle class for Rural Americans right in Rural America – living, working, and raising families generations to generation in thriving hometowns. Learn how revitalizing rural economies benefit all Americans.
• Strengthen the Agricultural Sector by passing a trade policy that truly benefits American farmers. They currently pay heavy tariffs, even though farmers make more than 20% of all crops grown and products raised in the United States. The Biden strategy for Rural America economic development is to establish a partnership with the community by investing in unique assets of farmers and generating wealth created in Rural America that stays in Rural America.

But what really excites me about Joe Biden’s Rural Outreach Initiative is supporting beginner farmers. There is no secret that it is hard to start a farm when an individual does not inherit the land. There is not only a historical socio-economic injustice found in America but also a racial injustice underlying of why there are so few black farmers and latino farmers. But these groups have historically labored the land and reaped no profits from it.

The Biden Administration will expand the Obama-Biden Administration’s microloan program for new and beginning farmers, doubling the maximum loan amount to $100,000. And, it will increase funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s farm ownership and operating loans that typically serve beginner farmers who grew up on a family farm but need low-cost capital to add to their family’s operation to support another household. This can improve quality of life for many rural residents by opening access to get started in a industry otherwise inaccessible to them.

Learn more about Joe Biden’s plans for Rural including renewable fuels and wind and solar energy, read here.