By Lindsey Frazier, Features Editor
Ron Sparks was the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries for two terms from 2003 to 2011. The second time he was elected, he was voted in by 62 of the 67 counties in Alabama, he said.
“It was one of the biggest honors of my life to be able to serve the people of Alabama, the consumers, the farmers, the people of Alabama,” Sparks said.
In 2011, he stepped down from his position to run for Governor, where he was defeated by Governor Robert Bentley. However, Sparks said he has sat on the sideline for long enough.
“If you look and see the struggle that our farmers are going through right now, I just feel like the timing is right for me to come back and give everything I have to try and help our farmers. Not only that, but I’m not really happy with some of the things that have happened at the Department of Agriculture.”
What should voters know about you?
“I believe the Department of Agriculture is the consumer protection agency of the state of Alabama. Whether it’s the food you put in your mouth, the gasoline you put in your car, the shrubbery you plant in your yard,” Sparks said. “We’re over animal health and plant health, food safety, pesticides… The Department of Agriculture is a big department and I was there for 12 years, so I know that department in and out, and the one thing I want to say, I say this everywhere I go, I’ve never made a decision based on my party affiliation. The Department of Agriculture, number one, it doesn’t need to be political. It serves everybody. There’s no decision that you can make over there based on whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. It’s unfortunate that you have to do that, but I was there for 12 years and I never made those decisions like that. I made decisions based on what I thought was good for the people of Alabama. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do again.”
What are you most proud of overall?
“When I came into office, animal diagnostics were not the best in the world,” Sparks said. “We didn’t have good facilities in Alabama, and that’s extremely important with our poultry industry, our cattle industry, and any other animal diseases that we could possibly have in Alabama. I built three brand new animal diagnostic labs in Alabama. I built one in Auburn, I built one in Boaz and I built one in Elba. So, we pretty well covered the state. The antibody diagnostics were state-of-the-art facilities, because Alabama’s an agricultural state and we have a lot of livestock and I wanted to make sure we took care of it.”
Before the facilities were built, necropsies, the autopsy of an animal, were completed in a homemade lean-to outside, Sparks said.
“That’s just not acceptable to me,” Sparks said. “That’s why we built a brand new one, so that we could make sure that our farmers and consumers and people who may have a pet or find a dead bird that needs some kind of dialysis. I mean, this was a very important part of the Department of Agriculture, and I was honored to be able to do it.”
What will you do if re-elected?
“When I was there, we had an agri investigator group,” Sparks said. “We had like 10 law enforcement officers that worked out in the counties that went to cattle sales. Farmers were able to get to them pretty quickly, and we were able to help farmers when they would lose equipment or lose cattle. Or help anybody, as far as that goes, whether it be violations or animal abuse, anything of that nature. They don’t have those anymore. They have pretty much done away with the law enforcement division at the department, and I don’t think it’s fair to the people of Alabama. Especially with the job they did. They were phenomenal employees and I’d like to put those back.”
Another thing Sparks said he would reinstate if elected is having the department inspect gas pumps as they once did. Currently, gas station owners are responsible for ensuring their pumps are accurate.
“When I was there, we sent out inspectors to make sure the pumps were accurate,” Sparks said. “Made sure that it’s been paid for a gallon if you got a gallon. Made sure that if you bought 93 octane, you got 93 octane, and that’s just not the way they operate today… I don’t think that’s exactly the way it ought to be done. Two reasons: one, service stations have to pay for the service, and two, the department is not as close to the inspections as it once was. So, I’d like to change that and get the department back involved so that we make sure consumers in Alabama are protected.”
What else do you want people to know?
“I feel like we have a message, and I certainly feel like we have a record,” Sparks said. “I would ask anybody to look at the record of when I was the commissioner and tell me what you didn’t like. You know, we worked hard and we opened up new markets for farmers. We push for country-of-origin labeling, so people would know where their food comes from. We fought for farmers when big businesses would try to mistreat them. We stopped foreign food that was contaminated from coming into the state of Alabama and so, we were very aggressive in a lot of areas.”
