Tom Vilsack
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Battle for the soul of organic dairy farmers goes on behind the scenes
There is a battle going on in the White House for the very soul of the organic dairy movement — and possibly over the future of small family-operated dairy farms — and you don’t even know it. I’d like to think that I’m overstating things but no. At issue is an obscure rule in the […]
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Can a new USDA advisory committee make the dairy industry less pathetic?
Much as I’ve long been taken with the romanticism of dairy farming and the visions of grazing cows and nurturing fresh milk it conjures up, I tune out when the talk turns to “the dairy industry.” That subject stimulates images of commodity trading, price controls, feed lots, and perhaps most onerous– a rigged system akin […]
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Johnny, Can You Spell Salmonella?
How is it that a country can put a man on the moon, but can’t seem to feed it’s children school lunches that are safer than those eaten at McDonald’s or Jack in the Box? In the past 10 years more than 23,000 school children have become sick as a result of hundreds of food […]
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Getting at the roots of unsustainable U.S. ag policy
Cross-posted from Civil Eats. Around one third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the way we produce, process, distribute, and consume the food we eat according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Meanwhile, farmers the world over will be the most affected by climate change, as higher carbon in the atmosphere and […]
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A new direction on research at the USDA?
Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave a speech on the role of research at the USDA at the launch of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the research arm of that agency formerly referred to as the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). Vilsack had this to say in […]
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Can the USDA really keep our food safe?
Having read and listened to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s attempts at ground beef-related damage control in the wake of the recent food safety revelations, I’m left to wonder if the USDA simply needs to get out of the food safety business entirely. Vilsack himself — in a Minnesota NPR radio interview where he defended the […]
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Quick thoughts on the USDA’s ‘Know Your Farmer’ program
What should we make of the USDA’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative, which the agency rolled out this week? USDA via FlickrAfter hearing USDA official Ann Wright’s remarks Tuesday in Chicago and reading through the press release, I’m both encouraged and skeptical. Speaking to attendees at the Chefs Collaborative Summit — an audience […]
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USDA’s $65 million drop in the bucket
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is so fired up about local food economies that it’s coughing up $65 million for a new program called “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.” My first reaction: $65 million?! That’s all?! At 3:45 central time a top USDA official is speaking at the event I’m at in Chicago. I […]
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Caption needed! UPDATE: Caption found
When you discover a picture of Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack posing with Cookie Monster and broccoli, it’s caption contest time! Submit captions below in comments. Funniest idea gets a priceless Virtual High Five. UPDATE: The winner of the Virtual High Five is … Ed Abbey! Scroll down to see the new caption. Thanks for playing! […]
