From Nicholas Kristof's 12/10/08 op-ed piece in the NYTimes:
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.”
From Ethicurean.com:
Around 90 sustainable-ag/food stalwarts — including Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, and Bill Niman — have sent a letter to the Obama transition team, listing six awesome candidates for what they called “the sustainable choice for the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.” Any one of them would be a great ally for the food movement:
- 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.
- Chuck Hassebrook, Executive Director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, NE.
- Sarah Vogel, former two-term Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of North Dakota, attorney, Bismarck, ND.
- 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.
- Neil Hamilton, attorney, Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, IA.
Well, that letter has been turned into an online petition at Food Democracy Now, where you can all sign it.
If you think this is something the Obama transition team should consider, please sign today. There were 45,000+ signatures on the petition when I signed it, up from 36,000 on December 12, when the second article, above, was written. That writer thought that if the petition got to 100,000 signatures within the next few days it would "...mean serious pressure for Obama to appoint a reformer as Secretary of Agriculture."
