Former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is U.S. Republican President-elect Donald Trump's leading candidate to run the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a senior Trump transition team official said on Monday (2 January).
Perdue, a Democrat-turned-Republican who founded a grain and fertilizer business, served on Trump's agricultural advisory committee during his presidential campaign.
The official gave no other details about Trump's choice for agriculture secretary, one of the few remaining posts Trump has to fill as he assumes the White House on Jan. 20.
The appointment must be approved by the Republican-led U.S. Senate.
Perdue, 70, led the southern U.S. state for two terms as governor from 2003 to 2011 after previously representing a rural swath of central Georgia about 100 miles south of Atlanta in the state Senate.
The rural vote in America is one of the key principle catalysts which helped secure a Trump victory, battleground states like Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania - large rural areas - helped catapult his campaign to victory.
Read more - What does a Trump victory mean for farming?
