USDA moves to let Monsanto perform its own environmental impact studies on GMOs

Another wonderful news story from the USDA. And while we’re at it, let’s let McDonnell-Douglass provide the official bomb-study damage in Afghanistan, including the body count.

See the full story by Tom Philpott

http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-04-19-usda-to-let-monsanto-do-own-environmental-impact-studies-on-gmos

Andrew Kimbrell of the Huffington Post on Vilsack for Sec of USDA

By Andrew Kimbrell of the Huffington Post

Posted December 23, 2008 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/obamas-choice-of-vilsack_b_153213.html

 

Subdued approval greeted President-elect Obama’s choice of Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture last week. This came from mainstream environmental groups, such as Sierra Club, and even organizations that have been critical in the past of the Iowa governor’s policies. Vilsack comes across in nearly all of the stories written last Tuesday and Wednesday as a solid choice, someone reliable from a farm state who understands farmers.

 

But, a day or two later the complexion of the Vilsack nomination had changed somewhat. First, the announcement was made in a slightly odd fashion, leaked out ahead of time, as though the Obama transition team were expecting some flak for their choice. In addition, Vilsack — notably — had removed himself from the running before jumping back in just prior to his selection by the president-elect.

Today, the lukewarm reception Vilsack initially received has turned into real heat as the Obama transition team finds itself in the fire over the former Governor’s appointment. President-elect Obama identified Vilsack as representative of the kind of “new leadership” Washington needs. But now, even those who initially greeted the nomination with some enthusiasm are wondering if Vilsack isn’t a signal of business as usual at the USDA, and beyond.

First of all — as Politico reports — there is the farm subsidy money that Vilsack has received over time from USDA. According to the piece, from 2000 to 2006, Vilsack and his wifecollected $42,782 in subsidies from USDA. In addition, “Vilsack is a partner at a lobbying law firm (Dorsey & Whitney) that trumpeted his advice to clients on agribusiness development and renewable energy — a job that appears to bump up against Obama’s promise to bar appointees from working on issues related to their employment for two years.” The former Governor recognizes the conflict of interests, and claims he will do everything he can to address the problem, and if he must, he will forgo the payments.

If only that was the sole reason to question the choice of Vilsack; $42K may not be enough of a figure to inspire concern. Vilsack’s positions on biotechnology and ethanol are far more troubling.

For those of us who have serious health and environmental concerns about genetically engineered (GE) crops, cloning, and industrial agriculture in general, it would be difficult to pick someone with a worse track record. Vilsack was even named “Governor of the Year” by the Biotechnology Industry Organization for his “support of the industry’s economic growth.” Small wonder. Under Governor Vilsack, the state of Iowa invested millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in dubious biotechnology start-ups, such as cow cloner Trans Ova Genetics ($9 million) and pharmaceutical corn developer, ProdiGene, Inc. ($6 million). Iowa’s investment in ProdiGene was particularly unfortunate. The company not only proved a financial failure, but in 2002, an Iowa cornfield that became contaminated with the company’s genetically engineered pharma corn had to be destroyed. One hopes Mr. Vilsack has learned from this experience. He also supported (some say instigated) a bill in 2005 that pre-empted cities and counties from regulating GE crops more strictly than the state or federal government. On biotechnology policy, Vilsack is far from the visionary we had hoped for.

Vilsack has also been a big supporter of ethanol, as is President-elect Obama. On this issue, they’re clearly in synch, but their enthusiasm is terribly misplaced. The latest science demonstrates clearly that corn-based ethanol exacerbates rather than mitigates global warming, while so-called “cellulosic” ethanol from crop waste and prairie grass (which might have value, the jury is still out) is years away from commercial use. Even some of ethanol’s strongest supporters in Congress, like Senator Tom Harkin, have come to question corn-based ethanol. President-Elect Obama and Mr. Vilsack should make elimination of federal subsidies for corn-to-ethanol — which now total several billion dollars per year — a top priority.

However, Vilsack has made some promises that are easy to rally behind. He says he supports biotech firm liability in cases of contamination episodes. He has also said that USDA should require companies to demonstrate no harm to markets for conventional and organic crops before approving new GE crops.

All this would be welcome, but so far, there is little to indicate that Mr. Vilsack would be the watchdog so promised. There is increasing disappointment in the choice, so we must watch his actions to see if he deserves the public’s trust. If he fails on any pledge, it’s up to consumers, farmers, and lawmakers to hold his feet to the fire. Ultimately, it is the President-elect’s food, farm and energy policies that will guide the USDA in the new administration. While not perfect, there is much promise in these policies.

There were high hopes that Obama would choose a Secretary who would bring real change to the beleaguered USDA. Though more progressive candidates were passed over, Tom Vilsack may not prove to be the AgriBusiness-as-Usual choice that his record would suggest. Some who know him say he is a good listener, and we should not rule out the possibility of change. A president elected on a platform of change needs to implement it nowhere more urgently than in food and farm policy. This nation needs nothing short of a New Green Deal to reverse the Bush administration’s abysmal food safety record and assault on the environment through its promotion of industrial agriculture. Although we remain hopeful with the choice of Tom Vilsack, we also have to remain very alert.

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 and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting genetically engineered crops and animal cloning. Equally troubling is Vilsack’s support for unsustainable industrial ethanol production, which has already caused global corn and grain prices to skyrocket, literally taking food off the table for a billion people in the developing world.

The Organic Consumers Association is calling on organic consumers and all concerned citizens to join our call to action and block Vilsack’s confirmation as the next Secretary of Agriculture. Please help us reach our goal of 100,000 petition signatures against Vilsack’ nomination. Sign today! Your email will be sent to your Senators and the President-Elect’s office.

Click here to voice your opposition!

 

Vilsack to be named Secretary of Agriculture

It looks as if the original rumors were true. Former Iowa governor and one time presidential hopeful Tom Vilsack was reported to be named Obama’s Secretary of the USDA. It was reported earlier that Vilsack was eliminated from the short list; apparently he survived.

This, much like the newly designated Secretary of Education, may not rest well with progressives because Vilsack is a friend of corporate agriculture, including Monsanto, the enemy of progressive food policy.

Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture: Support a New Way of Thinking about Food

Sign the Food Democracy Now! petition at http://www.fooddemocracynow.org and support one of these candidates for Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture: 

1. Gus Schumacher, Former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture.
2. Chuck Hassebrook, Executive Director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, NE.
3. Sarah Vogel, former two-term Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of North Dakota, attorney, Bismarck, ND.
4. Fred Kirschenmann, organic farmer, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, IA and President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, NY.
5. Mark Ritchie, current Minnesota Secretary of State, former policy analyst in Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture under Governor Rudy Perpich, co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
6. Neil Hamilton, attorney, Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, IA.

 

Obama’s “Secretary of Food”?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Op-Ed Columnist for the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/opinion/11kristof.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed “secretary of food.”

A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.”

The Agriculture Department — and the agriculture committees in Congress — have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.

But let’s be clear. The problem isn’t farmers. It’s the farm lobby — hijacked by industrial operators — and a bipartisan tradition of kowtowing to it.

I grew up on a farm in Yamhill, Ore., where my family grew cherries and timber and raised sheep and, at times, small numbers of cattle, hogs and geese. One of my regrets is that my kids don’t have the chance to grow up on a farm as well.

Yet the Agriculture Department doesn’t support rural towns like Yamhill; it bolsters industrial operations that have lobbying clout. The result is that family farms have to sell out to larger operators, undermining small towns.

One measure of the absurdity of the system: Every year you, the American taxpayer, send me a check for $588 in exchange for me not growing crops on timberland I own in Oregon (I forward the money to a charity). That’s right. The Agriculture Department pays a New York journalist not to grow crops in a forest in Oregon.

Modern confinement operations are less like farms than like meat assembly lines. They are dazzlingly efficient in some ways, but they use vast amounts of grain, as well as low-level antibiotics to reduce infections — and the result is a public health threat from antibiotic-resistant infections.

An industrial farm with 5,000 hogs produces as much waste as a town with 20,000 people. But while the town is required to have a sewage system, the industrial farm isn’t.

“They look profitable because we’re paying for their wastes,” notes Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. “And then there’s the cost of antibiotic resistance to the economy as a whole.”

One study suggests that these large operations receive, in effect, a $24 subsidy for each hog raised. We face an obesity crisis and a budget crisis, and we subsidize bacon?

The need for change is increasingly obvious, for health, climate and even humanitarian reasons. California voters last month passed a landmark referendum (over the farm lobby’s furious protests) that will require factory farms to give minimum amounts of space to poultry and livestock. Society is becoming concerned not only with little boys who abuse cats but also with tycoons whose business model is abusing farm animals.

An online petition that can be found at www.fooddemocracynow.org calls for a reformist pick for agriculture secretary — and names six terrific candidates, such as Chuck Hassebrook, a reformer in Nebraska. On several occasions in the campaign, Mr. Obama made comments showing a deep understanding of food issues, but the names that people in the food industry say are under consideration for agriculture secretary represent the problem more than the solution.

Change we can believe in?

The most powerful signal Mr. Obama could send would be to name a reformer to a renamed position. A former secretary of agriculture, John Block, said publicly the other day that the agency should be renamed “the Department of Food, Agriculture and Forestry.” And another, Ann Veneman, told me that she believes it should be renamed, “Department of Food and Agriculture.” I’d prefer to see simply “Department of Food,” giving primacy to America’s 300 million eaters.

As Mr. Pollan told me: “Even if you don’t think agriculture is a high priority, given all the other problems we face, we’re not going to make progress on the issues Obama campaigned on — health care, climate change and energy independence — unless we reform agriculture.”

Your move, Mr. President-elect.

 

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 (rBGH) through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply.

Over on Ethicurean, Steph Larsen of Center For Rural Affairs has a good post on the dreary real politics around who gets to be the next USDA chief. Have you seen those lists (like this one) that contain names like Hightower and Pollan? Forget about it, Steph says. According to Steph: “The process of becoming Secretary of Agriculture begins long before a presidential election. Candidates typically have myriad political connections and make themselves useful in the campaign of the eventual winner. By election time, the list of possibilities is already well-established.” That means the petition currently being circulated to demand Pollan be chosen is doomed. And anyway, who would leave an endowed Berkeley professorship and a regular gig at The New York Times Magazine to run a sprawling bureaucracy?

So who are the serious candidates for USDA chief? Steph’s post contains a list, and here’s one from Reuters and another from an ag trade publication. These are hardly inspiring names. Even in this era of “change,” it seems like you generally need to have proven your fealty to GMOs and corn-based ethanol to win serious consideration as USDA chief. Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, who briefly vied for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007, is emerging as a front-runner. Vilsack hews tightly to the biotech-industry party line; and he hotly promoted corn-based ethanol while governor. On the other hand, none other than Grist’s own David Robertsdeclared his energy plan during last year’s Democratic primaries the “ballsiest and most detailed any candidate from either party has offered.” And Ferd Hoefner of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition told me that Big Ag commodity groups had mounted a backroom campaign against Vilsack’s bid for USDA chief. Evidently, the former governor is more of a champion of conservation programs than they can tolerate.

There are certainly more egregious names on the short list than Vilsack. Last week, Pennsylvania ag secretary Dennis Wolff emerged as a contender. Wolff is notorious for unilaterally trying to prevent his state’s dairy farmers for labeling their milk rBGH-free. Former Texas congressman and Big Ag lobbyist Charles Stenholm is another profoundly depressing name. 

One name I’m intrigued by is John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association. Boyd helped lead the fight to hold USDA accountable for its long history of stiffing black farmers; his nomination is being championed by the Congressional Black Caucus. Virginia-based Boyd himself runs a relatively small-scale farm; seems like his position as a USDA outsider might lead him to champion the interests of small farmers in an agency that’s long been beholden to large industrial operations.

Michael Pollan, who recently laid out an ambitious blueprint for ag policy in the next administration that Obama says he has read, recently appeared on the Brian Lehrer show. Pollan expressed optimism that Obama would move in progressive directions on ag, declaring the president-elect the most synthesis-oriented chief executive we’ve had in a long time. Pollan laughed off speculation that he could be appointed USDA chief, noting that the marijuana chapter of Botany of Desire would cause vetting trouble; and pushed the idea, which he first floated on Grist, that Obama name a “food czar.”

 

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 dropped out of the presidential race last year after a short-lived bid, was an early backer of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But during the general election, he campaigned hard for Obama in Iowa.

 

“Vilsack is well-liked by both environmentalists and food industry leaders, the source said. In a sign that he is actively seeking the job, Vilsack has written opinion articles in recent weeks about agriculture policy, linking farming to energy independence and national security.

“Should things not work out with Vilsack, Obama might turn to Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.”

 

Interestingly, a student newspaper publication from Macalester College (St. Paul, Minn.) called “The Mac Weekly,” featured a Q and A with former Gov. Vilsack in a recent edition.

 

The Mac Weekly article stated that, “Former Democratic Governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack came to campus Oct. 31 to speak on the topic of ‘Confronting Climate Change: What Voters Need to Know.’ Before his lecture he sat down with The Mac Weekly to answer questions about ethanol, politics and the possibility of a Cabinet appointment.”

 

The article included this exchange: “What do you think the next agriculture secretary’s next priorities should be, whether it’s you or somebody else?

 

“[Vilsack] Well, I will tell you that it’s a department that impacts every American. Where do you start? You have an international food crisis. Sen. Obama has talked about the use of soft power, and that would be an opportunity to address in a significant way a new day in America, a new approach.

 

“You’ve got renewable energy, which the secretary of energy obviously is going to be involved in, but the secretary of agriculture is also going to be involved in it. How do you accelerate the research and development that gets you to second-generation bio-fuels?

 

“You have the reauthorization of the school nutrition program. You have to be focused on whether we are doing right by our children in schools across America in terms of nutritious food that we subsidize and we provide in school lunch programs.”

 

Vilsack also added that, “There is an issue of food security and food safety. We have an odd system in America. The USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] basically takes a look at meat, poultry and fish, I think, in terms of protecting it-the safety and security of it-but you have the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, providing safety and security of every other type of food product. Well, is there overlap? Is there inconsistency in the way these folks inspect plants and facilities? Should there be some coordination? Should there be some consolidation? So that’s an issue that will have to be addressed.”

And later, while answering a question on the issue of corn ethanol, Vilsack indicated that, “There isn’t going to be enough corn to produce the kind of demand that we’re going to have for ethanol. So you’ve got to transition away from corn for cellulosic ethanol, and that’s wood chips, that’s waste, that’s grasses, that’s crop residue, it’s a series of things that currently have little value but could-if we do it right-have significant value and can help produce a series of jobs, which this economy clearly needs. So as the research gets us to the point where we can produce cellulosic ethanol efficiently and in a cost effective way, what we’re going to see is a shifting of those subsidies and that assistance [to cellulosic ethanol]. And then overtime, as that industry matures, there will be a need for ratcheting down the subsidies because the market will take over and there will be an opportunity for additional profits from the market the way it ought to be.”

 

Philip Brasher, writing last week at The Des Moines Register’s Cash Crops Blog, pointed out that, “There’s a lot of buzz in D.C. about former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack becoming the next agriculture secretary. He would appear to meet the requirements of Farm Bureau president Bob Stallman. Meeting with reporters today, Stallman said Obama’s administration ‘would be best served by those who have ‘experience in governing and balancing competing interests. … That’s really what a lot of the job is about, balancing competing interests.’

 

“Stallman wouldn’t discuss particular prospects for the job but when asked about Vilsack, he would only say that he’s the ‘type of individual, governor, past member of Congress, people who have had experience running things.’”