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Carly Fiorina Addresses Questions from FarmHer Concerning Women in Agriculture

271 views · Published 19 October 2015 · 3:28 · Indexed 22 October 2026

Channel: RFD-TV · 2015 · Entertainment

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Carly Fiorina Addresses Questions from FarmHer Founder and President, Margi Gyler Alaniz

Q: Margi Gyler Alaniz, FarmHer:  Good afternoon. I'm Marji Guyler-Alaniz, and I'm president and founder of FarmHer, and FarmHer focuses just on the women in agriculture. So at nearly a million strong, women are a significant and growing part of agriculture. However distribution of resources and equitable access to capital needs more attention. The current administration has made significant efforts to increase awareness about women in agriculture. What could we expect to see from your administration regarding ways to further that dialogue regarding women in agriculture?

A: Carly Fiorina:  "You know, it's so important because women are half the nation, and that means women are half the potential of the nation. And our nation is best off, better off, when every American has the opportunity to fulfill their potential. Before I ran for the presidency of the United States I was Chairman of an organization called Opportunity International. We were the largest, still is, the largest micro-finance organization in the world. We lent $6 billion, $150 at a time, and lifted millions of people, mostly women actually, out of poverty in the developing world. Why do I start there? Because we know in the developing world, that if you get more women engaged in agriculture, food production goes up. If you get more women engaged in education, literacy goes up. If you get more women engaged in disease eradication or conflict resolution, things get better. In other words, the more everyone gets to participate in improving a society, and that's true here as well, the better it gets. So people shouldn't be afraid of more farmers, we should celebrate more farmers, men and women. I think one of the things that we need to recognize, access to capital is critical. In the organization I was just speaking of, Opportunity International, we were providing very small loans to women who had no access to credit. And imagine how difficult it would be to get started if you literally had no access to credit. The problem is this administration's policies have made access to credit for everybody, not just women farmers, far more difficult. So if you look at Dodd-Frank, for example, a piece of legislation that was passed that was supposed to take care of all the excesses of Wall Street. The reality of that legislation, like every other big government program, is that the big get bigger and more powerful, and the small get crushed. Ten Wall Streets banks became five even bigger, even more powerful Wall Street banks, and meanwhile, 1,700 community banks have gone out of business. Why does that matter? Because community banks are where so many farmers get their line of credit, their helping hand. Community banks are the backbone of a community for women and for men. So honestly, I think the Federal Government isn't going to do any better a job than you are in making sure the people of Iowa are aware of the important role that women farmers play. But what the Federal Government can do is make access to capital harder for women farmers, or easier for women farmers. And unfortunately, this administration has made access to capital far harder by making the Wall Street banks bigger, crushing the small community banks. That is the impact of big government, always. The big and the powerful get bigger and more powerful, and the small and the powerless get crushed. And it's why we have to take a different direction now." Info: www.ruraltownhall.com.V

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