Department of Agriculture

The players: Obama’s people

Obama’s green team Joe Romm says, “I honestly don’t know if it is politically possible to preserve a livable climate — but if it is, these are the people to make it happen.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but Obama has certainly put together a team capable of great things. Coordinating is […]

It's official: Nutrition will play a big role in reform at the USDA

After reading Tom Philpott's post on Tom Vilsack's recent comments to the WaPo, I think it's worth digging in a bit more.

To this point, we've all had to be content with reading tea leaves and parsing statements. But now we are finally getting a taste of the tea. Philpott highlighted Vilsack's line about his desire to represent the interests of those "who consume food" -- a long-awaited distinction to be sure.

Of course, claiming to represent eaters is no panacea. The USDA can easily describe its efforts to support a system that provides vast amounts of cheap calories as "helpful" to consumers -- and that kind of disingenuous wordplay would be par for the course at the old USDA. But it appears that Vilsack takes a broader, more progressive view as he pointed out the following:

His first official act was the reinstatement of $3.2 million in grant funding for fruit and vegetable farmers that had been rescinded in the final days of the Bush administration. Though the dollar amount was small, Vilsack said it sent a message of his emphasis on nutritious food.

Direct and organic farm sales rise rapidly, new census shows

Direct sales from farmers rose 49 percent, and organic farm sales more than tripled from 2002 to 2007, new USDA farm census data show.

USDA released the 2007 Agriculture Census data today, giving Americans a far more detailed understanding of agricultural trends -- just as interest in local foods expands dramatically.

For me, one of the key indicators of the growth of interest in community-based foods is the rapidly rising sales of food direct from farmers to consumers. Direct food sales rose a whopping 49 percent to $1.2 billion in 2007, up from $812 million in 2002. This includes farmstand, farmers market, internet, or other direct sales of fruit, vegetables, meats, and many other foods.

True agricultural policy reform may require climate reform first

I'm becoming more and more convinced every day that addressing climate change and reforming food production are pretty much the same thing. You can't do one without the other. And -- as Yogi Berra might say -- vice versa. The food and agriculture industries, aided and abetted by governments worldwide (not to mention by consumers), have succeeded in offloading just about all external costs involved with feeding us. Environmental issues, public health issues, natural resource utilization issues, even most economic issues related to food have all been socialized to the extent that the industry is almost totally isolated from the societal consequences of its actions.

Until now, few have complained, as this system has led to ever lower food prices in the developed world and thriving export markets in the developing world. But the costs, which for 60 years or so seemed to have been pushed back beyond the horizon, are beginning to loom.

Many of us have high hopes that the new administration can make serious progress on reform, but it's important to focus on how serious the challenge before us actually is. In this way, it's like the global warming debate back in the '90s. The science was pretty clear even then. There were visionaries like NASA's James Hansen and, yes, Al Gore, who understood that we needed to act. But for most Americans, hearing about climate change in the '90s was like being reminded to carry an umbrella on a sunny day. Where exactly were the portents of doom?

Recent food safety struggles suggest the limits of regulation

It's been a bad week for food safety. First it was the peanut butter, then it was the high fructose corn syrup, and now it's deadly antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria (MRSA) in CAFO pigs (and their minders). And of course, as Bill Marler -- litigious scourge of the food industry -- reminds us, we're continuing to lose the fight against E. coli.

Much has been written about the efforts to track down the sources of contamination.  And invariably the companies involved quickly close the their doors (which is how we lost one of the largest ground beef distributors in the country virtually overnight and why the Peanut Corporation of America is no more). But what's truly worrisome is that in each case, the USDA and the FDA (who have joint responsibility for food safety) had information at hand about all of these problems.

In the case of the peanut butter outbreak, the plant in question had a long-documented history of health violations -- discovered, not by the FDA, but by local Georgia authorities to whom the FDA had contracted out inspection services. In essence, short of allowing self-regulation, the FDA managed to find an entity that enjoys even cozier relationships with industry than the FDA itself has. In theory, the Georgia Agriculture Department should have forwarded on reports of violations to federal officials. There's no word yet on where in the lines of communication the breakdown occurred.

If Michael Pollan ruled the world …

"If it had been President Pollan, I probably wouldn't be here right now."

-- USDA chief Tom Vilsack

Coming together to work toward a sustainable food and farm future

On Wednesday, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack began his confirmation hearing to become the 30th U.S. secretary of agriculture with the promise to be a forward-looking leader who would make the USDA a 21st century agency. While his nomination has been unpopular among some members of the sustainable-agriculture community, there is hope that under his guidance the USDA can grow into a very different agency than it has been during the past four decades, when it's been run by secretaries such as Earl Butz.

As the next head of the USDA, Vilsack will be charged with revamping a sprawling agency that has an annual budget of $89 billion and more than 92,000 employees, a task that he is uniquely qualified to do.

In Iowa, which my family has called home for six generations, Vilsack is known to be a smart, capable administrator who has been willing to listen to the concerns of family farmers and rural advocates. While attending a Practical Farmers of Iowa conference this past weekend, where many of the state's most progressive and sustainable farmers gathered, there was almost universal agreement that Vilsack is capable of much more at the national level than he was as the governor of a former red state, where almost any progressive policy he would have put forward would have been blocked by a Republican-controlled Iowa House and Senate.

CAFOs and GMOs

That said, many are still upset over Vilsack's 1995 vote as a state senator to repeal local control (H.F. 519), which stripped local elected officials from having a say in where confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are located. His promotion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has concerned members of the sustainable-ag community even more. They fear that his closeness with agribusiness companies will only prolong U.S. farm policies benefiting corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers.

Here in Iowa, while we have been disappointed with many of our political leaders, we are pragmatic and understand when it is important to work with them and when it's time to hold them accountable.

Does America have the food system that we deserve?

McDonald's is on a roll. Says the NYT:

Six years into a rebound spawned by more appealing food and a less aggressive expansion, McDonald's seems to have won over some of its most hardened skeptics.

The chain has managed to sustain its momentum even as the economy and the restaurant industry as a whole are struggling. Month after month, McDonald's has surprised analysts by posting stronger-than-expected sales in the United States and abroad.

I've been won over all right. Won over to the argument that changing food policy in this country is a quixotic proposition. The article presents as progress that McDonald's responded to flattening beef consumption by going, quoth one executive, "at chicken hard."

Firstly, um, ew? And secondly, learning that McDonald's now sells more chicken than beef worldwide doesn't quite feel like the revolution is right around the corner.

Searching for the hope in Obama’s USDA pick

Is it too early to peel my Obama sticker off my car? I am more than disappointed by the President-elect’s nomination of Tom Vilsack for secretary of agriculture. But after some reflection, this dark cloud may have one ray of light coming through. During his remarks at the press conference announcing the choice of Vilsack, […]