Ricketts presents agriculture plan during Sidney campaign visit

Nebraska gubernatorial candidate Pete Ricketts knows that agriculture is vital to the state's economy as well as its way of life.

"Agriculture is the heart and soul of who we are here in Nebraska," Ricketts said during a campaign stop in Sidney on Monday. "It drives the economy, 25 percent of the people here in Nebraska are employed in agriculture."

For the past few months Ricketts traveled the state on an agriculture and manufacturing tour to determine the biggest issues facing those industries in Nebraska. The result of this trip was a plan for how to grow agriculture and strengthen the rural economy.

Some of the solutions outlined in the report are tax relief through cutting farmland valuations from 75 percent to 65 percent of market value. It also suggests capping how quickly valuations can rise, putting more money into the property tax credit relief fund and cutting unfunded mandates pushed down by the state onto counties and school districts.

Ricketts knows that reliable water resources are vital to agriculture in the state.

"Water is a key issue," Ricketts said. "We're the largest irrigated state in the country and we need to have a sustainable water strategy for the entire state."

Because the state is so diverse, Nebraska's water plan will be different in the eastern portion of the state, where flooding is more of an issue, than in the west where water availability is the most pressing problem.

The governor will have to balance all those with interests in water including municipalities, agriculture, U.S. fish and wildlife and surrounding states who utilize water flowing out of Nebraska, Ricketts said.

He believes the governor must formulate an overall water strategy with all of these interests in mind and then commit the state resources to implementing that plan.

"Really, the governor is the one nexus that touches all these points, and if we're gonna have an overall water strategy and commit the state resources, that'll be to try and capture some of that water that's leaving the state," Ricketts said.

Around 2 million acre feet of water enters the state each year while about 8 million acre feet leave, according to Ricketts.

Other important points in Ricketts' plan include support for value-added agriculture, such as corn ethanol, opening Nebraska agriculture to more export markets and support for manufacturing.

"Manufacturing provides a way for us to create jobs for small towns and rural communities," Ricketts said.

Quality infrastructure is important to delivering the products of agriculture and manufacturing to consumers, Ricketts said. The tax climate needs to change in order to facilitate manufacturing, in his opinion.

Part of Ricketts' plan is a push to get more young people involved in agriculture. He admits that for a young person establishing a farm operation can be daunting due to the high costs of land and equipment.

He supports programs such as the personal property tax exemption, which offers beginning farmers exemptions from personal property tax on agriculture land up to $100,000 in valuation for three years.

The state must continue to support programs such as the 100 beef cow advantage and the 100 acre program at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture, encouraging farm and ranch transfer planning to assist students in starting their own operations upon graduation.

With a wide range of conservative Republican candidates in the race for governor, Ricketts said his experience is what makes him stand out.

Although cutting expenses and controlling the growth of state government are key to lower tax rates in the state, Nebraska also needs to invest wisely, Ricketts said.

"You know, you can't cut your way to growth, you have to make the prudent investments," Ricketts said. "And with my business experience, having been the former chief operating officer of Ameritrade, I've seen how you leverage best business practices and technology to be able to provide a higher level of service at a lower cost, that's how we were able to grow Ameritrade."

When Ricketts started at the financial firm 20 years ago it employed 150 people in Omaha and serviced around 60,000 accounts. Now Ameritrade employs 2,000 workers in Nebraska, 6,000 across the country and services 6 million accounts.

The company achieved this by providing a higher quality of service, Ricketts said.

"I'm the only candidate that helped grow a small Nebraska company into one of the largest financial services firms here in the country," Ricketts said. "And it's that business experience that's so critical because Governor Heineman has done a great job at keeping a lid on spending and now it's time to build on that foundation and take it to the next level."