David City residents have seen the AGP facility just north of town grow out of the fields like the soybeans it processes for a couple years now. Finally, on July 17, the AGP board and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen cut the ribbon on the building, signifying its opening.
In the last week, Pillen has traveled to businesses throughout Nebraska and even Washington, D.C., to sign bills, learn about businesses and talk national security. Recent attitudes toward Israel, border security, relations with Russia, China and Iran all present a security risk to the country, Pillen said. Nebraska ag production ties into those elements too, he said.
"Where I'm going with all this is, is that we have had people, we have had no border security until now, which was resulted in the gobs of criminals and terrorists that come across," Pillen said. "I think the wake up for all of us is, who do we do business with?"
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One way to make a difference, Pillen said, is to buy locally, something he talked about at his Columbus stops shortly after the ribbon-cutting.
Business
The new AGP facility isn't just a big deal for the company, Pillen said, but for the whole state.
"This is a gigantic value-added play," Pillen said. "The message is really simple, trying to make sure Nebraskans understand how important value-added agriculture is. The vision of agriculture is to not put soybeans and corn on barges, but to process our corn or soybeans, turn it into further value, and then where we can export it, create products that we can sell all around the world, instead of just raw commodities."
With the facility being owned by Nebraska farmers, working with them is one of the greatest forms of value-added agriculture, Pillen said. He equated family farm and food security with national security.
"I think a lot of my generation has been duped on that, you know, 'Let's buy stuff from the cheapest place we can get it, if we can get it cheaper, let's go buy it there,'" Pillen said.
He advocated for choosing locally-owned options over dollar stores or larger international or chain businesses.
In keeping with that theme, Pillen also visited a butcher shop in O'Neill for a symbolic signing of Legislative Bill 246 with the bill's sponsor, State Sen. Barry DeKay, who introduced the bill on behalf of the governor.
Agriculture
The bill, which Pillen officially signed into law on May 20, bans the manufacture, sale and distribution of lab-grown meat in the state.
It's important for Nebraska to "get on the offensive" about this, Pillen said.
"It's really important that we stand up to the fringe left groups that are attacking how we raise livestock, saying we're destroying the environment, that we don't care about our animals, methane, all these silly accusations from the far left groups," Pillen said.
Pillen said that the "fringe left groups" promoting these concepts are pushing for a vegan society.
LB246 protects cattle, corn and the whole agriculture industry, he said.
"Because none of those things can happen without cattle," Pillen said. "Then we're creating an environment that says, 'Hey, we can do the best. We feed cattle, we raise cattle the best of anywhere in the world and we're open for business.' We're the place that can do it and can sell it anywhere in the world."
In a wide-ranging conversation with The Telegram, Pillen also touched on concerns like social media and the rapid advancement of AI technology in the hands of children.
"We've been able to beat the big technology companies to have social media limited, let parents control it," Pillen said. "We've also been able to fight them on the AI technology with this pornographic crowd, because there's gobs of young girls who are victims with the sex trafficking that's taken place."
Pillen pointed to the recent passage of LB89, the Stand with Women Act, restricting transgender athletes to the in public K-12 or college athletics to compete on the team of their birth sex, as an example of protecting Nebraska children.
One thing that Pillen is still trying to solve is students' behavior in classrooms.
"We've got some problems with what goes on in education with our kids," Pillen said. "There are unacceptable behaviors being allowed in kindergarten through third grade where kids can flip teachers off and say 'f-you' more than say 'thank you' with no consequences."
Economy
Lowering property taxes has proven illusive as well, Pillen said, but they are at 33 votes for property tax reform and general tax policy reform.
Pillen reiterated his plan to cut the state budget by $500 million in the next year. This is part of an effort to run government like a business, something the governor has been trying to do since he was elected.
"There's no ifs, ands or buts that it happens in business, slam dunk, to decrease spending 10% and we have a full team that all believe and everybody's working on that," Pillen said.
As an example, Pillen said, a government could have a goal of reducing full-time employees on payroll, but then replace them with contractors that end up costing more in the long run. Technically, the government reduced the number of full-time employees, but it didn't reduce spending, implying that a business would not operate that way.
Circling back to his previous talking point of buying local and how farm and food security equate to national security, Pillen again urged Nebraskans to choose smaller businesses over bigger chains and not go with whatever is cheapest without thinking about what your purchase may be supporting.
"I'd like to encourage everybody to say we need to fix that," Pillen said. "We have supply chain issues. We are doing nothing but losing our security. So the message is really simple, we all need to really pay attention when we can play a role. Let's do business with our neighbors that own businesses up and down our street."
