Ag secretary: Rural areas need to promote benefits

The federal government needs to help rural areas promote their advantages to the American public and find ways to create higher-paying jobs outside of urban areas, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says.

"Sometimes we think any job is something we should focus on," said Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa before joining the Obama Administration. "We sometimes undermarket and undersell rural communities as a place to live and raise families."

Vilsack spoke Tuesday at a forum at the University of Missouri Delta Center, an agricultural research facility near the Missouri Bootheel town of Portageville, about 170 miles south of St. …