Choice of Vilsack risks agribusiness as usual? We'll see.
Vilsack's approach as ag secretary surprises critics
source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090501/BUSINESS01/905010384
Vilsack's approach as ag secretary surprises critics
By PHILIP BRASHER • pbrasher@dmreg.com • May 1, 2009
Washington, D.C. - The World War II-era poster that faces Tom Vilsack's desk should provide a clue that he may not be the kind of agriculture secretary expected of a former governor of Iowa, the land of big, high-tech grain and hog farms.
The poster says: "Let's All Grow Vegetables."
In his first 100 days in office, Vilsack has surprised his early detractors, who feared he would be too close to agribusiness.
In what is supposed to be a symbol of the Obama administration's new priorities, Vilsack started an organic vegetable garden in front of the Agriculture Department near one of the more prominent spots for tourists in Washington, the subway stop that serves the Smithsonian museums.
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In another key move, Kathleen Merrigan, a university professor who helped create the national program for certifying organic food, was installed as deputy secretary at the USDA.
Vilsack also demonstrated an early willingness to take on the USDA's traditional constituency among conventional farm interests. He called meatpackers in and told them to adhere to more strict procedures for labeling pork and beef from foreign sources, and he pitched a proposed cut in farm subsidies as vital to funding better nutrition for poor children.
"He has a much broader understanding of agriculture and food systems than I think some of his critics had expected," said Ben Lilliston of the Institute for Agriculture and Food Policy, a group that advocates a shift to smaller-scale, diversified farms that rely less on chemical inputs and biotechnology.
Lilliston said the USDA's organic garden is a powerful symbol showing that the department now "recognizes and values the importance of people growing their own food and connecting with food in a deeper way."
Vilsack sees himself as a bridge between all scales and philosophies of agriculture.
"To me it isn't about either-or," he said in an interview in his office overlooking the National Mall.
"It's about how do you figure out ways for folks to co-exist and how do you figure how to take the best of all of it and move an agenda forward that repopulates the rural community, that focuses on good stewardship, on sustainability, on getting the most of our resources," he said.
In fact, he has made some moves that appeal to conventional agribusiness interests: He has urged the Environmental Protection Agency to increase the use of corn ethanol in gasoline, opposed proposals to create an international grain reserve for manipulating prices, and pledged to promote overseas acceptance of genetically engineered crops.
Vilsack frequently makes references to "production agriculture," a term for the large-scale farming that is dominant in Iowa and that grows most of the nation's food.
He says that sector needs to increase production even more to feed a growing world population. Otherwise, "you're going to be in major trouble, major trouble globally," he said.
Still, some farm groups have been upset with some of Vilsack's early moves, including his pitting of "high-income farmers" against hungry kids with the proposal to eliminate some subsidies to farms with more than $500,000 in gross sales.
The appointment of Merrigan as deputy secretary, the official who traditionally runs the USDA's day-to-day operations, also raised concerns among some conventional farm interests, as well as the selection of the Environmental Defense Fund's Robert Bonnie as a senior adviser on environmental and climate issues.
The Obama administration also has been putting new emphasis on foreign agricultural development aid, which was slashed over the past two decades because of resistance from U.S. farm groups.
Jon Doggett, a lobbyist for the National Corn Growers Association, said he likes Vilsack's "enthusiasm for biofuels" and that Vilsack is "singing our song" with respect to crop biotechnology.
But Doggett will be watching to see whether the USDA, under Bonnie's guidance, shifts its environmental policies in a way that he thinks would hurt conventional farmers.
Vilsack has had his share of missteps:
• He initially called for creation of a single federal agency to regulate food safety, a job now scattered among at least 15 agencies, but he backed off the idea when the White House set up a task force to study the issue. "What I was trying to convey was a willingness of USDA to think differently, to think anew, to challenge conventional thought processes," he said.
• Vilsack's office was forced to retract an allegation that he made at a White House news conference that a USDA contractor and former Iowa State University administrator had spent excessively on foreign travel.
• Then there was the proposed subsidy cut that was rejected flat by Congress. Vilsack stopped linking the subsidy cut to child nutrition after infuriated farmers complained to the department. Vilsack won't say who proposed the cut, but he defends the idea as demonstrating the administration's commitment to addressing child nutrition.
Craig Lang, president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, met with Vilsack and said later that he "was a little angry with me personally, and certainly at Farm Bureau, because he felt we came down really hard on him when he came out and pitted rich farmers against hungry children."
Mistakes aside, Vilsack has made clear that he believes he has a mission to change the public perception of the USDA as an agency that mainly dispenses subsidies to large farms in his home state and elsewhere. He wants the USDA to be seen as an "every day, every way" department that encourages different styles of farming and plays a more prominent role in improving nutrition and addressing climate change and other environmental issues.
"One of the things you're going to be seeing this president and this secretary do is to make the Department of Agriculture more real in people's lives who don't ever see a farm," said Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate agriculture committee.
That's where the new People's Garden at the USDA comes in. The project is supposed to get passers-by to think about gardening, organic farming and knowing the sources of their food. It dovetails with First Lady Michelle Obama's installation of a garden on the White House lawn. Vilsack has called on all USDA offices around the country to put in gardens as well.
"This is a different day" at the USDA, Vilsack said. "This is a more expansive USDA ... and a USDA that understands the significance of local production as much as it understands the significance of large-scale production. Those are both very important."
Vilsack's approach as ag secretary surprises critics
By PHILIP BRASHER • pbrasher@dmreg.com • May 1, 2009
Washington, D.C. - The World War II-era poster that faces Tom Vilsack's desk should provide a clue that he may not be the kind of agriculture secretary expected of a former governor of Iowa, the land of big, high-tech grain and hog farms.
The poster says: "Let's All Grow Vegetables."
In his first 100 days in office, Vilsack has surprised his early detractors, who feared he would be too close to agribusiness.
In what is supposed to be a symbol of the Obama administration's new priorities, Vilsack started an organic vegetable garden in front of the Agriculture Department near one of the more prominent spots for tourists in Washington, the subway stop that serves the Smithsonian museums.
Advertisement
In another key move, Kathleen Merrigan, a university professor who helped create the national program for certifying organic food, was installed as deputy secretary at the USDA.
Vilsack also demonstrated an early willingness to take on the USDA's traditional constituency among conventional farm interests. He called meatpackers in and told them to adhere to more strict procedures for labeling pork and beef from foreign sources, and he pitched a proposed cut in farm subsidies as vital to funding better nutrition for poor children.
"He has a much broader understanding of agriculture and food systems than I think some of his critics had expected," said Ben Lilliston of the Institute for Agriculture and Food Policy, a group that advocates a shift to smaller-scale, diversified farms that rely less on chemical inputs and biotechnology.
Lilliston said the USDA's organic garden is a powerful symbol showing that the department now "recognizes and values the importance of people growing their own food and connecting with food in a deeper way."
Vilsack sees himself as a bridge between all scales and philosophies of agriculture.
"To me it isn't about either-or," he said in an interview in his office overlooking the National Mall.
"It's about how do you figure out ways for folks to co-exist and how do you figure how to take the best of all of it and move an agenda forward that repopulates the rural community, that focuses on good stewardship, on sustainability, on getting the most of our resources," he said.
In fact, he has made some moves that appeal to conventional agribusiness interests: He has urged the Environmental Protection Agency to increase the use of corn ethanol in gasoline, opposed proposals to create an international grain reserve for manipulating prices, and pledged to promote overseas acceptance of genetically engineered crops.
Vilsack frequently makes references to "production agriculture," a term for the large-scale farming that is dominant in Iowa and that grows most of the nation's food.
He says that sector needs to increase production even more to feed a growing world population. Otherwise, "you're going to be in major trouble, major trouble globally," he said.
Still, some farm groups have been upset with some of Vilsack's early moves, including his pitting of "high-income farmers" against hungry kids with the proposal to eliminate some subsidies to farms with more than $500,000 in gross sales.
The appointment of Merrigan as deputy secretary, the official who traditionally runs the USDA's day-to-day operations, also raised concerns among some conventional farm interests, as well as the selection of the Environmental Defense Fund's Robert Bonnie as a senior adviser on environmental and climate issues.
The Obama administration also has been putting new emphasis on foreign agricultural development aid, which was slashed over the past two decades because of resistance from U.S. farm groups.
Jon Doggett, a lobbyist for the National Corn Growers Association, said he likes Vilsack's "enthusiasm for biofuels" and that Vilsack is "singing our song" with respect to crop biotechnology.
But Doggett will be watching to see whether the USDA, under Bonnie's guidance, shifts its environmental policies in a way that he thinks would hurt conventional farmers.
Vilsack has had his share of missteps:
• He initially called for creation of a single federal agency to regulate food safety, a job now scattered among at least 15 agencies, but he backed off the idea when the White House set up a task force to study the issue. "What I was trying to convey was a willingness of USDA to think differently, to think anew, to challenge conventional thought processes," he said.
• Vilsack's office was forced to retract an allegation that he made at a White House news conference that a USDA contractor and former Iowa State University administrator had spent excessively on foreign travel.
• Then there was the proposed subsidy cut that was rejected flat by Congress. Vilsack stopped linking the subsidy cut to child nutrition after infuriated farmers complained to the department. Vilsack won't say who proposed the cut, but he defends the idea as demonstrating the administration's commitment to addressing child nutrition.
Craig Lang, president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, met with Vilsack and said later that he "was a little angry with me personally, and certainly at Farm Bureau, because he felt we came down really hard on him when he came out and pitted rich farmers against hungry children."
Mistakes aside, Vilsack has made clear that he believes he has a mission to change the public perception of the USDA as an agency that mainly dispenses subsidies to large farms in his home state and elsewhere. He wants the USDA to be seen as an "every day, every way" department that encourages different styles of farming and plays a more prominent role in improving nutrition and addressing climate change and other environmental issues.
"One of the things you're going to be seeing this president and this secretary do is to make the Department of Agriculture more real in people's lives who don't ever see a farm," said Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate agriculture committee.
That's where the new People's Garden at the USDA comes in. The project is supposed to get passers-by to think about gardening, organic farming and knowing the sources of their food. It dovetails with First Lady Michelle Obama's installation of a garden on the White House lawn. Vilsack has called on all USDA offices around the country to put in gardens as well.
"This is a different day" at the USDA, Vilsack said. "This is a more expansive USDA ... and a USDA that understands the significance of local production as much as it understands the significance of large-scale production. Those are both very important."
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