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In Vilsack’s words…
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 | Author: admin

Short update on the last post! I just read a great article from the Washington Post about the role that Tom Vilsack will be playing in a new era of American politics. They always do such a great job talking about food and agriculture issues in a journalistic way. Here is most of the interview:

Some in the sustainable-food community have worried that you are too closely identified with ethanol and agribusiness. Is that fair?

First, I would ask for the opportunity for people to get to know me and judge me by the actions I take in this office. I’m not sure the full nature of the record was understood.

What don’t people know about you that might change their minds?

Food during my early years was a very difficult issue for me. I grew up in an addictive family. My mother had serious problems with alcohol and prescription drugs. I was an overweight kid. I can remember back in those days there weren’t the strategies that there are today to deal with those issues. So my parents put this very nasty cartoon of a very overweight young kid with a beanie cap and pasted it on the front of the refrigerator. So every time I opened the refrigerator I had to look at that picture.

Food is a fairly significant aspect of my life. I have struggled mightily with food. With my weight. And I’m conscious of it. So I have a sensitivity to people who struggle with their weight. That’s one aspect people don’t fully appreciate. I don’t want youngsters to go through what I went through.

There are ways we can go do a better job of educating young moms and dads about the vital role they have as the child’s first teacher. I think there are ways in which we can partner with local school districts and states to do a better job to provide nutrition options at school. It’s our responsibility to get this health-care crisis under control. I think if people understand that history and how serious I am about this and look at the record in Iowa — the real record in Iowa — they would be less concerned than they were.

What specific ideas do you have about how to move forward to improve nutrition in school lunches?

Part of my responsibility is to find people who share my concern and have more expertise than I do. People we nominate will be people who understand this issue and have the desire to effect change. The specifics of how we can do this will come from the experts. My job is to listen to the president, who is the ultimate vision maker, articulate his vision to the people who work in this department and add my two cents’ worth. The vision is, he wants more nutritious food in schools.

Will local foods play a part?

In a perfect world, everything that was sold, everything that was purchased and consumed would be local, so the economy would receive the benefit of that. But sometimes that stresses the capacity: the production capacity or the distribution capacity. Especially since we don’t have yet a very sophisticated distribution system for locally grown food. One thing we can do is work on strategies to make that happen. It can be grant programs, loan programs, it can be technical assistance.

Is it true that you are thinking of changing the name of the department to include a reference to food?

We haven’t got to that point. Rather than renaming it, as important as some people may feel that would be, I think [we need] a recognition that this was America’s first energy department. If you think of what food is, it’s the energy we use to do our daily work. I want people to know about the USDA. This is a very important department. It’s not fully appreciated as such.

It’s hard to convince people of that sometimes.

You tell them there’s a new day here. You tell them every time they pick up a fork, every time they pick up a spoon, every time they slice a piece of bread, remember America’s first energy department.

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New Year: New President: New Secretary of Agriculture!
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 | Author: admin

Wow, I have fallen off the blogosphere! It has been over two months, but I realize that the more I write the more I will keep up with the news and articulating my takes on various agrissues. So I’m going to make an effort to at least write once a week, and also continue working on film projects and posting them soon. So much has changed in the USA over the last months (–I know, I haven’t written since November–), but here are the most relevant pieces of news that have struck me:

We have a new president!! Now I don’t want to sound cheesy, but I am absolutely giddy with pride and hope for the future. For many years, I watched US domestic and foreign policy spiral away from where I feel we should stand. In particular, I was increasingly disgusted with our international policies on energy and trade, and our domestic policy on environmental issues and agriculture (of course). For my entire voting life, I have had a president whose principles were far from mine, who embarrassed me when I traveled abroad, and whose country I saw on a dangerously downward trend. I wanted to move out of the United States, away from my home and my family and my friends, and to a state whose government more closely matched my values. But now, with Obama in the White House, I can say that (gulp) I would be thrilled and honored to work for the government! It is going to be less of an uphill battle for people working in “green collar” jobs, and I am so proud to be an American for the first time in a long time. Sure I’m worried about the economy, but on the upside, desperate times are a great incubator for innovation. Hooray for a new chapter in American history!

Obama at an Iowa farm in July 2007

Obama at an Iowa farm in July 2007

With the new president, a new Secretary of Agriculture has been appointed. On December 17, 2008, President (then President Elect) Obama named Tom Vilsack the next Secretary of Agriculture. On January 20, 2009, the Senate unanimously confirmed this appointment. Looks like my prediction in a post last year that Obama would shy away from Vilsack as his main agrisqueeze wasn’t too accurate!

In a Gristy look at the Vilsack appointment, David Murphy references Lincoln’s act of creating the Department of Agriculture. In Lincoln’s day, this was called “the people’s department.” He reviews the current state of big agribusiness and agripolitics, closing with the interesting reflection that

During Lincoln’s day nearly 58 percent of Americans were farmers. Today that number has dropped to less than 1 percent. If Obama/Vilsack want to stem to blood loss in rural America they’re going to have to appoint some serious agents of change.

Wikipedia tells me that (surprise surprise) Vilsack is supported by the Corn Refiners Association, the National Grain and Feed Association, the National Farmers Union, and the American Farm Bureau Federation. The Organic Consumers Association, on the other hand, vehemently opposed Vilsack’s appointment, and in November 2008 they released a report citing reasons Obama should not appoint him (this is also from the wiki page):

  • Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops; as Iowa state governor
  • He originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown
  • Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group.
Yeah, so Vilsack is really into corn. Take the bad with the good...

Yeah, so Vilsack is really into corn. Take the bad with the good...

Vilsack has been the governor of Iowa since the late 1990s, and as such has plenty of support for big agrindustry, particularly in the corn arena. On the upside, he is a democrat who is committed to renewable energy (even though he mostly supports corn-based ethanol), understanding the human side of climate change (from FarmWeek: “I want this department to be a national leader in climate change mitigation/adaptation efforts…This will involve conservation, greater efficiency with the energy we have, and new technologies and expanded opportunities in biofuels and renewable energy”), and he also is very familiar with sustainable agriculture research. Iowa, though deep in the corn belt, is also a big player in the organic farming movement (check out the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University).

Frederick Kirschenmann, a distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center, stressed that Vilsack focus on the issues of nutrition, energy and freshwater in an Ames Progressive article. Kirschenmann recommends a systems approach to solving the myriads of problems facing the Department of Agriculture: “since systems are complex and multi-faceted, I would urge Secretary Vilsack to insist on full life cycle analysis in assessing whether any innovation actually produces the economic, environmental or social benefits it purports to provide.”

In January on a US Food Policy blog, I read that Vilsack promises to promote local food systems and thinks fruits and vegetables shouldn’t just be grown in rural areas, but everywhere. Vilsack met with Health and Human Services nominee Tom Daschle and is quoted as saying, “It’s going to be important for us to promote fresh fruits and vegetables as part of our children’s diets. . .that means supporting those who supply those products” and making it easier for consumers to buy locally grown products.

In his first weeks as Secretary, Vilsack is already making big changes. Vilsack has recently appointed 48 key USDA posts, which you can read about in this AgriPulse file. He also reversed two nasty policies from the Bush administration, as described in a recent Gazette article. In one, Vilsack restored funding for a healthy food program, and in the other he extend the comment period on contentious rules limiting crop subsidy payments. Way to go, Tom!

The Washinton Post nodded towards foodies’ raised eyebrows about the Vilsack appointment, but went on to commend his commitment to farmers and even more to child nutrition programs.

He added that educating school administrators, parents and children is essential in effecting change. To that end, he said, he supports establishing school and urban community gardens, long at the top of the wish list for activists.

“We want to make a better connection between what kids eat and knowing where it comes from,” he said. “I’ve seen it in my own family. If you educate kids at an early age, you can have a tremendous impact.”

It is certainly a step in the right direction. OK, we didn’t get what the NYT’s Nicholas Kristof called a Secretary of Food. Alright, we don’t have a Farmer in Chief (yet). And sure, it’s not a flying leap like us sustainable food advocates would have hoped. But it’s much better than what we’ve had in this last decade! In a NYT article, Vilsack is quoted as writing:

Let us build a 21st-century rural economy of cutting-edge companies and technologies that lead us to energy and food security…Such an investment will revitalize rural America, re-establish our moral leadership on climate security and eliminate our addiction to foreign oil.

And another great bite from the Washington Post, from VIlsack on the Department of Agriculture:

This is a department that intersects the lives of Americans two to three times a day. Every single American…So I absolutely see the constituency of this department as broader than those who produce our food — it extends to those who consume it.

Only time will show how much Vilsack will follow through on these commitments, but I am hopeful that things will be moving in the right direction. Or rather, towards the left.

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