Key presidential appointments to the USDA’s Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) mission area were announced today.

Brooke Shupe Appleton is already serving as the Deputy Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation. Previously, she served as Vice President of Public Policy for the National Corn Growers Association. She spoke in place of Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Tuesday during National Ag Day at USDA.

Bill Beam will serve as the Administrator for the Farm Service Agency (FSA) within Farm Production and Conservation. Bill is from Elverson, Pennsylvania where he owns and operates Beam Farms Inc. with his family.

Pat Swanson will serve as the Administrator for the Risk Management Agency (RMA) within Farm Production and Conservation. Most recently, Pat has served as a director for the American Soybean Association (ASA) and completed her term on the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Board.

Aubrey Bettencourt will serve as Chief of the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). Aubrey is a prominent leader in agriculture, water, and sustainability, most recently serving as the Global Director of Government Relations and External Affairs for Netafim, an Orbia Company. Bettencourt spoke on a panel at the Agri-Pulse Ag and Food Policy Summit earlier this week on the topic of transforming agriculture productivity through AI and new technologies.

“I think one of the great things that you heard from every panelist was we have to be driving innovation in tech for ag from the farmer back up,” said Bettencourt during an interview at the event. “I think that bottom up influence, the power of data as these new technologies come on board, making sure the farmers are armed with that data in the marketplace and in the regulatory space is going to be really, really important and something I’m very passionate about because these are voluntary investments farmers are making to produce more with less inputs on less land as we’ve seen the continued decline of productive agricultural land. If we want to see a stable food system and food security in the United States we’re going to have to figure out how to grow more with less.”

Aubrey Bettencourt, Netafim 4:03