(Photo: Iowa Soybean Association / Joclyn Kuboushek)
Ottumwa farmer at the helm
June 30, 2025 | Bethany Baratta
Iowa farmer Pat Swanson was appointed administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency (RMA) earlier this year by the Trump administration.
She oversees the delivery of the federal crop insurance program and risk management tools that serve as a foundation for farmer financial stability and long-term resiliency.
Her family owns and operates a seventh-generation farm near Ottumwa, raising soybeans, corn and cattle.
We checked in with Pat, living in Washington, D.C., since March 24, to learn more about her role.
Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) knows you as a past ISA director and a past American Soybean Association (ASA) director. What are you up to now?
I'm the administrator overseeing the risk management agency, which oversees the federal crop insurance program. I'm a political appointee, so I'm here for four years. RMA is a small agency, but we work with about 17,000 people involved in delivering the program, including those involved in crop loss assessments, insurance providers and the private agents who are delivering the program to farmers.
How'd you get there?
You could say I got my start by walking beans on the farm when I was about 12 years old. The eight of us - my five siblings, my parents, and I - were celebrating with a gallon jug of A&W root beer because we were done walking beans for the summer. That evening our farm was hit by a hailstorm and it took out the crop. Luckily my parents had some form of crop insurance; they were able to farm several years more because of it.
Fast forward, I got my degree in computer science from Iowa State University. I married Don, a farmer, who eventually decided to start a crop insurance agency near his hometown of Ottumwa. I left my sales job at Hewlett Packard, we moved to southeast Iowa, and I stayed home to raise our children. I earned my crop insurance license and went on to help with the agency. Because of my analytical brain, I always needed to know why. Why is it like this? Why do we do it that way? Why don't we do it this way? I was always questioning things and learning things. I think that's why I enjoyed being a crop insurance agent over the past 20 years because there's always new things to learn, new situations and new things to figure out. (Editor's note: Pat divested her share of the crop insurance agency to accept the position at RMA).
How did ISA play a role in getting you to the South Building at USDA?
I got involved as an advocate for farmers through the Iowa Soybean Association, but it was really through the Iowa Food & Family Project that gave me my voice as a farmer. After serving on the ISA board, it was a natural fit to get involved with the American Soybean Association. ASA elevated my resume up to the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation board, where I served for four years. Then I was asked to fill this role.
What is your top priority at the agency?
My priority in this position is to make sure that the farm safety net, which keeps our farmers financially stable, stays actuarily sound, stays working for our farmers, and stays working for all of us, including taxpayers who pay for this program, too. We're part of the same team and we all need to move in the same direction to make sure that our farmers, when they put the seeds in the ground every spring, that they're able to farm and know with confidence that if something falls off the rails - the commodity prices go too low, the storm hits them - they know they can farm again the next year.
What do you want farmers to know about what you're trying to achieve in D.C.?
I'm here to fight for the program. Truly the backbone of the farm safety net is crop insurance. I want to make sure that it can continue for generations to come. I'm working with the Senate and House Agriculture Committees, providing technical expertise as they're working toward a farm bill.
Thoughts so far?
It's the perfect job. I work for the most efficient, most well-oiled machine in Washington, D.C.. I'm very proud of the agency and what we're able to do. It's really a partnership between the insurance companies, the farmers themselves who pay premiums and the government. It's a unique public-private partnership that truly is a model of efficiency for the government; there's fewer than 400 people here and each year we're delivering about $200 billion worth of liability for our farmers.
Written by Bethany Baratta.
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