Organic Consumers Unite: Stand Up Against Vilsack for USDA

Despite a massive public outcry, including over 20,000 emails from the Organic Consumers Association, President-Elect Obama has chosen former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to be the next Secretary of Agriculture.
Sign OCA’s Petition to the US Senate Now!
While Vilsack has promoted respectable policies with respect to restraining livestock monopolies, his overall record is one of aiding [...]

Obama and the New USDA Chief: Vilsack Out, Two Remain

Posted by Tom Philpott at The Grist
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/11/24/134851/03
Until very recently, speculation around who would take the top spot at Obama’s USDA centered on former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, a champion of both genetically modified seed technology and farm-subsidy reform.
But now Vilsack’s out of the running, the Des Moines Register reports. Evidently, a petition from the Organic Consumers Association helped sink his prospects.
What [...]

Obama Transition and Agriculture/USDA Policy: Selling Out?

Posted by Tom Philpott at Grist
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/11/19/6373/9820
The transition named its “team members” looking at energy and natural resources agencies, which includes USDA. The list includes Michael R. Taylor, a man who spent his career bouncing between the employ of GMO-seed giant Monsanto and Bill Clinton’s FDA and USDA. Taylor is widely credited with ushering Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone [...]

Pro-Agribusiness Vilsack on Obama’s Short List for Sec of Agriculture

By Keith Good
FarmPolicy.comà http://www.farmpolicy.com/?p=927#more-927
 
As the executive branch transition unfolds, attention has focused on who might by the next Secretary of Agriculture.
 
Al Kamen noted in today’s Washington Post that, “The Obama transition team considers former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack a near shoo-in for secretary of agriculture, according to a source close to the transition. Vilsack, who [...]